In 2014, appalled at the number of young children kicked out of school, the superintendent of schools in Minneapolis banned the suspension of students in pre-kindergarten, kindergarten and first grade.
That’s something the six-member legislative committee created to discover why 850 New Hampshire students in kindergarten through third grade were suspended during the 2014-15 school year should consider recommending.
Suspensions, particularly when they’re not an in-school “time-out” with a teacher or professional but a ban from school for a given number of days, should be exceptionally rare.
Studies and experience show suspensions can doom a child to academic failure and place him or her on a path that too often leads to jail or prison. Before it can begin its work, the committee needs Senate approval, something we hope will be seen as routine.
No student should be suspended repeatedly. Instead, the school and parents should either find ways to deal with the problem, such as assigning an aide to that student, or place them in a school that specializes in helping problem students succeed.
In-school suspensions should not mean a period of silence in a study hall but time with a professional skilled in discerning the cause of the behavior and changing it.
Facts are scarce. The committee should recommend that the precise reason for any suspension and the child’s age, grade, gender and other information be recorded when a suspension occurs.
Nationally, four times as many pre-kindergarten boys are suspended as girls. Black children are twice as likely to be suspended as white students, and poor children more often than middle-class children. Continuing education for educators should include courses on early childhood development. Behavior that’s normal in early childhood – “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours” – would be rightly considered aberrant or even criminal in later grades.
A first-grader, lawmakers were told, was suspended for taking two salad dressing packets but using only one. He pocketed the other and was kicked out for stealing.
A kindergartner was suspended for pointing a Hobbit toy at another child and saying “I’m going to make you disappear,” something that any kid pretending a stick was a magic wand would tell an annoying sibling.
Absurd responses by educators? Absolutely.
It’s probably true, as Carl Ladd, associate executive director at the New Hampshire School Administrators Association, told Monitor reporter Allie Morris, that schools are seeing more young children with severe behavioral issues than in the past. But suspending a child whose misbehavior might be caused by lead poisoning, mental illness, poverty, a troubled home life or incompetent parenting means failing that child.
Violent behavior – biting, throwing chairs, hair pulling and the like – should of course be addressed immediately, but suspension does not cure such behaviors. It makes them worse by angering and alienating a child who needs understanding and someone to trust.
It’s costly and unfortunate that schools are being called upon to do so much more than teach, but that is the reality.
Taxpayers should understand that it’s far cheaper and better for society to help all children succeed to the best of their abilities than to pay more in prison and welfare costs.