DisciplineGenericPhoto082712California schools urgently need strategies for discipline that help children learn from mistakes, make reparations for harm and go on to succeed, a group of educators said last week in support of a bill that would dramatically change school discipline practices by banning the use of “willful defiance” in meting out expulsion and restricting its use in mandating suspension.

The educators made their case to the Senate Education Committee, which then voted 7-1 to pass Assembly Bill 420 and move the measure to the Senate floor. The bill would bar suspensions for the subjectively defined “willful defiance of school authorities” for students in kindergarten through fifth grade, while middle and high school students could be suspended for willful defiance only for a third offense – and only if alternative means of discipline had been used for the previous offenses. No student at any grade level could be expelled for willful defiance.

The use of willful defiance as a cause for suspension and expulsion has become a flashpoint in the debate about how to manage school environments, particularly when students come to school with complex emotional issues stemming from poverty, violence and trauma. The term is listed as a cause in nearly half of the 700,000 suspensions given in California schools each year and in a quarter of expulsions. Disproportionate numbers of African American students are suspended from school, and students who are suspended even once in ninth grade are twice as likely to drop out of high school as students who have not been suspended, according to studies. Dropouts are much more likely to end up in the juvenile justice system, research has found.

“We know we need to change the direction we’ve taken historically,” Assemblymember Roger Dickinson, D-Sacramento, author of the bill, told Senate committee members. Describing a “broken” school discipline system statewide, he said that behavioral issues must be addressed with “alternative means of correction” to keep students “in school, on track to graduate, and out of the criminal justice system.”

In May, after impassioned public discussion, the Los Angeles Unified School District became the first district in the state to stop suspending students for willful defiance.

Roger Dickinson

Assemblyman Roger Dickinson, D-Sacramento

But proponents of the use of willful defiance say they need the flexibility to remove students from school if their behavior is unacceptable. Last year, a similar bill from Dickinson passed the state Legislature and was vetoed by Gov. Jerry Brown. The Association of California School Administrators last week voiced opposition to the bill unless amended, and the California Teachers Association has issued a “watch” position on the bill while it works on amendments with the author.

“While the idea of alternatives to suspension and expulsion is critical to us, we don’t want to tie the hands of school staff, at any grade level, to deal with what they have to deal with at a school site,” Seth Bramble, legislative advocate for the teachers’ group, told the Senate committee.

Opponents say that “zero tolerance” rules for misbehavior merely push troubled students onto the streets and fail to serve children who desperately need help.

“When I started as principal at Leataata Floyd Elementary School, we had a room that teachers and students called ‘the dungeon,’ where you were sent when you talked back to a teacher or wouldn’t do your homework,” Billy Aydlett, principal of the Sacramento-based school, told the committee. “I noticed two things right away: The students in ‘the dungeon’ received no instruction by their classroom teacher and were not held accountable for their schoolwork. And ‘the dungeon’ was full of black and brown boys.”

He added, “It’s easier to suspend than to love and develop a child who is hard to love.”

Karen Junker, a sixth grade math teacher and coordinator of the student climate and culture program at Davidson Middle School in San Rafael, told the committee that the introduction of a “peer court” to handle some student behavior issues at the school had contributed to a drop from 365 student suspensions four years ago to 40 suspensions in 2012-13. The court provides a forum for peers and family members to talk with the student about the impact of the student’s misbehavior, appropriate restitution, and steps to help the student move forward to be successful at school, such as tutoring.

“People think that suspension diversion is soft on crime, but it’s tough love on crime,” Junker said.

As a result of the high number of suspensions, Junker said, Davidson had lost more than $35,000 in attendance-based school funding four years ago. This year she said the loss was $4,000. “We are saving tens of thousands of dollars a year, test scores are up, attendance is up, and we’re closing the achievement gap,” Junker said.

Many California schools have already adopted alternative approaches to student discipline, including the more than 800 California schools that use an approach to student behavior called Positive Behavioral Intervention and Supports (PBIS), which includes a data system to track student behavior and the explicit instruction of social and emotional skills such as listening, responding thoughtfully, and problem-solving. The largest study to date on the effectiveness of PBIS on child behavior found that well-structured, schoolwide implementation of the PBIS approach leads to “significant reductions in student suspensions and office discipline referrals.” The study was conducted by researchers at Johns Hopkins and was published in November 2012 in the journal Pediatrics.

“You have to change the way people are thinking about discipline,” said Barbara Kelley, chief executive officer of the California Technical Assistance Center. “It’s a change from discipline as punishing to discipline as teaching.”

 

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  1. Andrew 11 years ago11 years ago

    As a parent, I would say that my children are in school to obtain educations, not to be the forced and perpetual spectators in legislatively ordained endless dramas between teachers and defiant students. Better to suspend one out of Doug's 37 than rob the other 36 of their educations due to the behavior choices of that one. The independent study charter school where my wife teaches had better prepare for expansion if … Read More

    As a parent, I would say that my children are in school to obtain educations, not to be the forced and perpetual spectators in legislatively ordained endless dramas between teachers and defiant students. Better to suspend one out of Doug’s 37 than rob the other 36 of their educations due to the behavior choices of that one. The independent study charter school where my wife teaches had better prepare for expansion if this bill passes and that ultimate sanction is lost. The conventional public schools may retain the ADA of the defiant students, but they will lose a lot more ADA of non-defiant students seeking uninterrupted educations.

  2. Bob 11 years ago11 years ago

    What exactly is so hard about not getting suspended from school? I grew up in LA Unified in a working class area and found it beyond easy to never get suspended from school. It’s almost as east as avoiding electrocution by not sticking a fork in a toaster. The fact that people think AB 420 is necessary is confounding. My parents taught me to respect the teacher. How hard is that?

    Replies

    • patty 10 years ago10 years ago

      Totally agree with you! Nobody wants to make parents accountable. My parents taught me to have respect for others, and it started at home. If your parents would only hear how 10 and 11 year old are talking back to teachers, they would be speechless…these parents are not caring about teaching their kids values.

  3. Frances O'Neill Zimmerman 11 years ago11 years ago

    Doug's excellent letter describes schools as they are and how they might be better. But those remedies are not on the horizon and, in the meantime, it was announced last week that classes in San Diego Unified are going to be bigger in the Fall than they were last year. And there is certainly no new money for serious discipline/counseling/academic instruction or time in the school day for peer counseling systems to be established … Read More

    Doug’s excellent letter describes schools as they are and how they might be better. But those remedies are not on the horizon and, in the meantime, it was announced last week that classes in San Diego Unified are going to be bigger in the Fall than they were last year. And there is certainly no new money for serious discipline/counseling/academic instruction or time in the school day for peer counseling systems to be established and maintained, though years ago I have seen those work effectively. Finally, the typical student perp/victim of suspension for willful defiance of a teacher is NOT like the picture you chose to illustrate this story, so that is misleading. Why beat around the bush? As your story points out, findings of “willful defiance” and its purposeful and unintended negative consequences are overwhelmingly a problem for teenage children of color.

  4. Doug 11 years ago11 years ago

    As I read this article I get the feeling the problem being addressed is not behavior but the saving of money sent to the schools based on attendance. We build our master schedule on a minimum of 37 in a class. This certainly is not something to help teach or to entice great behaviors. We have multiple tests that we are judged upon, that have little or no real impact on the student personally, with a … Read More

    As I read this article I get the feeling the problem being addressed is not behavior but the saving of money sent to the schools based on attendance.

    We build our master schedule on a minimum of 37 in a class. This certainly is not something to help teach or to entice great behaviors. We have multiple tests that we are judged upon, that have little or no real impact on the student personally, with a time certain that the information must be delivered. Also not something that is designed with the motivation of students in mind.

    Lowering class sizes so teachers might have a chance to get to know their students on a personal level, student accountability in testing and courses other than honors/AP a-g that apply skills used in the real world, might be a good place to start a statewide PBIS.