Every year public education is barraged by a new set of laws, regulations and mandates. Many times these laws are feel good laws that legislators realize will placate local constituents, but tend to forget how those laws affect all the other districts in the State of Illinois. I could talk about many such laws but today I want to focus on one such bill that if passed will present a clear danger for our students here at PORTA and many districts like ours. The Bills introduced by Senator Lightford (SB 3004) and Rep. Davis (HB 4655) create sweeping changes to student discipline rules for all public schools. These bills do the following:
In Closing let me share and excellent article written by Todd Gazda, Superintendent, Ludlow Public Schools who also writes about legislative issues affecting our school in Illinois.
http://superintendentlps.blogspot.com/2014/03/enough-is-enough.html?m=1
- Prohibit the use of "Zero-Tolerance" policies unless required by the state or federal law.
- Limit out of school suspension longer than three days to Required circumstances including gross disobedience and misconduct, the students presence poses a ongoing threat only the physical safety of others, and only after all other appropriate behavioral and discipline interventions have been exhausted.
- Limits expulsions and removals to alternative schools to the following circumstances: an act of gross disobedience or misconduct that must include the distribution of illegal drugs or controlled substances to other students, weapons, or other destructive devices (Possession not included), sexual assault or the use of physical violence against another student or staff that must result in a physical injury, or knowingly putting another student or staff member at risk of bodily injury or death; if the students continued presence would pose an ongoing threat only to the physical safety of others; and, only after all other appropriate behavioral and disciplinary interventions have been exhausted.
- Prohibit law enforcement from arresting or citing students at school for crimes other than Felonies, Class A or B Misdemeanors. In other words law enforcement will not be able to arrest a student for Class C misdemeanors, such as possession of cannabis less that 2.5 grams, assault or disorderly conduct.
- Requires schools to submit detailed reports of each suspension longer than 3 days, expulsion, removal to alternative school, school-based arrests and criminal citations immediately to parents or guardians of the student and compile annually for public review.
Senate Bill 2793(Hutchinson) also requires schools to report all instances of exclusionary discipline to the Illinois State Board of Education, and, following analysis by ISBE, would require school districts in the top quartile for"Racially Disproportionality" to adopt discipline improvement plans. (Oh, who do you think will be at the top of the lists for "Racial Disproportionality? It may surprise you that many districts with low minority levels may make up the majority of top 25% simply because they have a very low occurrence of minority students and if any one of those students are suspended it would look as if the district had very high levels of minority suspensions.)
So, what does all this mean? In my opinion this set of proposed legislation is yet one more attempt to take local control away from our elected boards of education. Legislation like this is created to deal with issues in school districts in areas of Illinois which are vastly different than districts like PORTA. Obviously, there are lots of instances in other districts where students are arrested at school for drug use, fighting, assaults on staff and students, gang related activities, etc, but this is not the norm at PORTA. If we feel the need to call police on an issue it is important and if that issue relates to a student with drugs in his/her possession we expect that a student should be arrested. Additionally, the legislation places one more series of reports and improvement plans for districts to complete, all during a time with Administrative and Teaching staffs are being reduced because the State of Illinois is not meeting its obligation to the school districts. The point is that issues such as this should be dealt with at the local level. A Chicago legislator has no business developing legislation to halt the multitude of school arrests occurring in their district and in the same sweep of the pen take the rights away from voters in our communities. - As always I look forward to your responses. Have a great week.
In Closing let me share and excellent article written by Todd Gazda, Superintendent, Ludlow Public Schools who also writes about legislative issues affecting our school in Illinois.
http://superintendentlps.blogspot.com/2014/03/enough-is-enough.html?m=1