California to extend ban on pushing students out of school for disruptive behavior

While I feel like suspension should be saved for the most egregious acts, the ones making these decisions aren’t in a classroom. They aren’t dealing with the outright disrespect that teachers have to handle all while trying to continue to do their job of teaching.

I’ve seen classrooms get sidelined by the acts of one or two students in it. The students’ behavior sets the tone for the whole classroom. And don’t blame that on the teacher. How much mental health education does a teacher receive? How much of a teacher’s time should be spent on it? And where do these student’s go when they are on “in-school suspension”? To the office, that’s where, where they continue to refuse to do work and disrupt the workings of the already busy office to employees who are even less versed in how to handle said students. This article makes it seem as if these student’s go to a room where they are specifically dealt with one-on-one with a paid specialist.

Not in this state! Support schools, teachers and students completely, not half-assed.

This is crazy that people are not seeing the real big picture as to why this law is pushed and is in need. I know: I have a child that’s in 5th grade and sent home constantly for blurting out in class, for getting up and leaving out his class and many more other behavioral issues – not to mention he was recently diagnosed with ADHD.

The point is these schools have no structure at all, no authority and just expect a child to act all goody 2 shoes. Not all kids come equipped with those goody 2 shoes skills so instead of giving them a hand and making them sit down to do their work, they rather give them a F grade and send them home for 2 days, and my son is black, by the way. But to me, it’s not just color, it’s his future and not wanting to be discouraged by the time he gets to middle school.

From my perspective as a 20 year veteran teacher and founder of Teachers’ Wellness Coaching & Consulting, there has been a significant shift in the basic and socio-emotional needs of the K-12 population, especially in the Bay Area where economic, food, and housing insecurities are plaguing our families and the ability of students to learn.    

I completely agree with the first portion of Skinner’s statement: “Ending willful defiance suspensions will keep kids in school where they belong.” However, I find that the second portion of the statement: “where teachers and counselors can help them thrive” puts an enormous burden on teachers and counselors who are neither social workers nor psychologists yet they are increasingly expected to perform those roles as well as delivering instruction.

As of date, most investment on  teachers’ training has been focussed on classroom management, trauma informed classroom, and socio emotional learning.  To my knowledge, very little has been done to help teachers and educators with their own emotional and mental wellbeing.  How can we expect disregulated adults to teach children to regulate themselves? Are we preparing the emerging generation of teachers with the knowledge, skills and attitude they will need to face today’s classroom without compromising their sense of wellbeing and sanity?  Are we intentional and simultaneously looking at the flip side of this new law: rates of anxiety, depression, burnout, and attrition afflicting the teaching profession? 

I am hopeful that this new law will be the catalytic event that will result in the development of policies, systems, and practices supporting the mental health and wellbeing of those who have dedicated themselves to the teaching profession.  

In my Wellness Coaching role, I focus on mental health and wellbeing of teachers and administrators. I work with educators to help them develop their personalized wellness plan.  I frequently hear disturbing  stories of chairs being thrown in the classroom, fights breaking up, parents’ outrage, threats, and levels of condescendence and disrespect that would make anyone’s skin crawl.  We are no longer talking about something “minor as chewing gum or talking in class” as implied by Angela McNair Turner.  

I wish I could rescind my vote. I left teaching after 20 years largely because of the disrespect, defiance and feeling unsafe. My sister has a 3 year RN certificate- she made a lot of money, happy, benefits, not having to discipline kids and be abused daily as I was as a teacher. I have many years education above her. I wish I could choose my career over again. Never teaching! These politicians need to try teaching. And the defiant students represent all colors. Doesn’t matter. The entire system is a mess! I will say this- I substitute taught at a private Catholic school and it was awesome! Food provided. Respectful students. Involved staff all around. Staff treated with respect. ALL schools should be this way!

I certainly hope that the governor plans to support this bill with giving every school an in-school suspension room and adequate personnel that it takes to help. Extra counselors on the school sites to deal with the behavior from students who are dealing with trauma and a suspension room to help with the kids who refuse to even stay in the classroom – those who get in trouble for having explosive tempers and throw desks across classrooms, use profanity and threaten other students.

That is what students are usually suspended for. Gum chewing – let’s get real: Teachers don’t really fight that battle unless it is a school with very respectful students who have nothing else to get in trouble about.

As an African American educator, I believe that Governor Newsom’s support of Senator Skinner’s Senate Bill 419 creates a gross injustice for all students who arrive in the classroom with a genuine willingness and desire to learn. Senate Bill 419 lowers the quality of public education for students and parents who cannot afford to provide their children with private education. Senate Bill 419 ignores the fact that students with disciplinary problems disrupt instruction and distract the learning process of students in classrooms across the country on a daily basis. Why should students of all ethnicities with genuine interests in learning be deprived of consistently sound education because policy makers fail to appropriately address the problem of disruptive students in their classrooms?

I was a high school teacher 20 or so years ago. I did not stay in the profession very long because our school district wouldn’t discipline the students for fear of losing them to a charter school. You could literally come to my class ten minutes late, tell me to F off and then sit in your seat and scream at the ceiling, and no one would do anything.

Imagine what it must have been like for the few students I had that actually wanted to learn. Public education is nothing more than prison for children run by the DMV.

I’d love to know where Mr. Freedberg got his information that students would “likely participate in activities that address their behavior.” Who is running that program at schools where there is so little money that teachers are having to provide paper and pencils for their classes out of their own personal funds? And while he is correct that students of color being suspended at higher rates than their white counterparts, I’d love some data on how many students have been suspended for talking and gum-chewing. That is ridiculous propaganda aimed at making teachers look like racist extremists.

I also want to know who is responsible for teaching humans that defying authority comes with consequences in our society. Parents aren’t doing it. Teachers are quickly being limited in their ability to do it. But police officers can arrest, physically harm, and even kill people for defying authority. As a parent, I’d rather have my kid learn in 4-6th grade that defying authority has consequences as opposed to having her find that out for the first time at the hands of law enforcement.

This is a questionable panacea that blindly blankets a deeper issue – the lack of adequate attention to mental health and poverty. How willful is willful and what recourse does a teacher now have to deal with a child who is blatantly disrespectful, cursing, spitting, and/or refusing to follow directions to stop miscreant behavior?

In-school suspensions require personnel to oversee the lot of children who are now allowed to remain in school, often at the expense of already strained budgetary issues and the lack of restorative justice trained personnel. Suspensions have the dual effect of sending a clear message, and involving the parent, who is now also affected {not unlike the several adults and dozens of other children who have to ignore, tolerate, cower from, or experience trauma from Young Kenny who told a teacher to shut the “f” up – and not once, but several times}. Without substantial resources in place to transfer this negative energy out of the learning and teaching environment, everyone still suffers.

While I’m in favor of the intent of this law, I would’ve strongly preferred that there had been legislation passed prior to this law that established fiscal commitment to school-based mental health and wellness supports – namely: professional development in trauma-informed approaches, inclusion of social-emotional learning curricula and fulltime counselors and clinicians who can see any student (not just Medi-Cal) at every school. This would allow school staff to develop the skills and expertise in supporting students – rather than reacting to suspension being ‘off the table’ as one comment notes.

This is reminiscent of banning solitary confinement in the juvenile system without training officers in alternate management skills. Expensive? Yes – but not compared with the cost of housing a single child in CA’s juvenile system or the cost of lawsuits alleging inadequate resources for students with complex trauma, as Compton Unified has recently experienced. We keep talking about the effects of trauma on behavior – and yet we make no meaningful commitment to support strategies to address it. The science is all there. Budgets are moral documents.