s.e. smith recently wrote about abuse of autistic students in Pennsylvania and the distressing rise in abusive ‘discipline’ for students with disabilities. Ou mentioned a recent study from Delaware that found that students with disabilities are more likely to be suspended for ‘behavior’ problems than students without disabilities. Ou discussed some easy ways that a disabled student’s behavior could be categorized as disruptive and make them subject to discipline:

Are students suspended for not using modes of communication familiar to teachers? For needing to stand or pace while learning? For needing a quiet environment for learning, and for becoming upset when one is not provided? For needing orderly and precise schedules? For not completing assignments they don’t understand or find impossible to finish? For attempting to create and maintain personal space? For expressing any number of needs and needing a space where they are accommodated? For tics in the classroom?

I had all this fresh in my mind when, at work, I came across a recent report on school discipline in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Although one of the organizations involved in researching and preparing the report is an organization focused on mental health disabilities, the executive summary does not have any data or recommendations about students with disabilities. But it did have a couple of points that I found very interesting and thought were worth discussing.

The first underlines the point that s.e. smith was making in ou’s previous post – that disproportionate discipline demonstrates broader societal disregard for the targeted group. The report re-frames the student dropout crisis as a “student ‘push-out’ crisis,” arguing that discipline reform “requires respect for children’s dignity, meaning schools will not exclude, get rid of, or criminalize them for misbehavior or underachievement… If the policies and practices of every school were geared to fulfill their human rights, our children would not be excluded, tracked, and pushed out… [nonconforming] students are more likely than other students to be ‘pushed out’ of school and ultimately find themselves in the juvenile delinquency or adult criminal justice systems.”

s.e. said the same thing in ou’s earlier post:

This is a reflection of a lot of problems with the way society views and treats people with disabilities, and of serious inadequacies in the education system. Teachers who abuse students clearly should not be in the classroom, yet they are, and they are sometimes allowed to remain even after abuse is reported. Teachers who have received no training in working with disabled students shouldn’t be assigned to classrooms with disabled students, yet they are.

The primary focus of the report was highlighting the extreme racial disparities in LAUSD discipline. African-American students make up 22% of LAUSD students, but about half of disciplinary actions involve African-American students. These students were also more than twice as likely to be suspended than other ethnic groups. As the report concludes, “the gross disparities apparent in the past and current application of suspension to African-American students by LAUSD make clear that … the District employs practices that are inconsistent with federal, human rights, and state mandates.”

Although the report highlights racial disparities, it seems that one of the primary recommendations of the report would benefit all students targeted for discipline, including those with disabilities:

Priority: Share Power with Parents.

Recommendation: Share the first signs. Schools shall contact parents at the first sign that something is wrong with a student’s behavior so there is an opportunity to take preventative measures rather than wait until an issue escalates into a major problem.

Recommendation: Share planning and decision-making. Schools shall include parents on their [discipline] teams and give them equal say in decision-making and planning related to [discipline policy.]

Recommendation: Create shared trainings. The District and schools shall conduct [discipline policy] trainings jointly with administrators, teachers, and parents in the same room.

Recommendation: Enable parents to enforce accountability and transparency by schools. Schools shall establish parent committees to observe discipline practices, especially in the classrooms, play areas, and cafeteria. Schools shall make disciplinary data, practices and procedures, and outcomes and benchmark data available on a monthly basis to parents and the community so they can also monitor implementation of [discipline policy] and do whatever necessary to hold LAUSD accountable. The District shall effectively inform parents of what schools are required to do according to [discipline policy], and what parents should do if their schools are not following through.

A final thought: it would be very interesting to see data of discipline rates of disabled students of color. They must be through the roof.