A Senate committee advanced legislation Thursday that would change how suspensions are handled at schools despite concerns from organizations representing school boards and superintendents that it limits administrators’ ability to discipline some students.
The two bills that passed out of the Senate’s Education and Health Committee, SB995 and SB997, are similar in scope to two others that a House committee advanced Wednesday.
Sen. William M. Stanley Jr., R-Franklin County, assured colleagues that the concerns would be addressed as the bills move through the Senate and are reconciled with the House bills.
The bills are aimed at cutting back on the length of suspensions in an effort to keep students from getting farther behind academically and getting them the help they need.
Proponents argue that sending kids home for too long makes problems worse and does not address the issues that caused the bad behavior.
School administrators, though, say they are tasked with keeping all their students safe and argue that they need the tools — including long-term suspensions — to make that happen.
In the case of the Senate bills that advanced Thursday, there seems to be agreement that how suspensions are handled needs some changing. The question is how that will be done.
“What we see and what statistics have shown is that when (students) come back after these long-term suspensions, you have academic failure and grade retention. You have lower graduation rates,” Stanley said.
“They’re dropping out of school. There may be undiagnosed mental health issues and substance abuse. We want our children to grow up, get a good education and be good taxpayers, not burdens to the tax system.”
SB995, as approved Thursday, calls for reducing the maximum length of a long-term suspension from 364 calendar days to 60 school days. School officials would conduct a review after 45 days to work on how best to integrate a student back into a school setting.
The bill originally called for suspensions not to extend beyond 45 days. The House bill, HB1534, calls for a cap of 90 days.
The legislation does allow schools to go over 60 days — but not more than 364 days — if offenses including felonious assault and bodily wounding, criminal sexual assault, arson or the sale or possession of Schedule I or II drugs happen at school or school events.
The Virginia School Board Association and the Virginia Association of Superintendents agree that progress has been made in negotiating the terms of SB995 but argue that the measure may hamstring school administrators.
They told the committee that limiting the number of days a student can be suspended and behavior left off the list of violations inadvertently could lead to expulsions.
Stacy Haney, speaking on behalf of the school board association, said the list of offenses “is a pretty short list and there are still some serious offenses that would be left out of that.”
Among the items not on the list, she said, are Schedule III narcotics and weapons offenses other than firearms.
“If we’re limited to 60 days and our choice is between allowing the student back into school in 60 days and expulsion, in those serious cases, school boards may very well chose expulsion,” Haney said.
“That’s not where we want to go. I don’t think that’s where the proponents of this bill want to go. But I am concerned that that is what’s going to happen.”
Stanley said that, as written, the legislation clearly delineates the reasons a suspension can go longer than 60 days.
As for SB997, it would keep suspensions of preschool through third grade students low but give schools leeway to go up to 10 days if the incident involves a weapon, inappropriate sexual behavior or serious bodily injury.
Stanley proposed Thursday that the suspension cap be set at five days. But after concern that it would tie educators’ hands, the bill was amended.
The House bill would prohibit students in preschool through third grade from being expelled or suspended for more than five days except for drug offenses, firearm offenses or certain criminal acts.
Stanley said he would work with other senators “to see if we can find a consensus that achieves the aim of this bill. If we can’t get a consensus, then I’ll come back next year and we’ll keep doing this.”
“What we’re trying to do is to avoid the 16,000 pre-K through third graders that are being suspended, to use alternative measures instead of just using suspensions,” he said.
Stanley
