By Michael Pepper and Malachi Parker | Special To The OBSERVER

A new law seeks to cut down on school suspensions and keep more children in the classroom.

The law prohibits suspensions for “willful defiance,” tardiness and truancy in public schools for grades 6-12. Previous legislation gave the same protections to elementary and middle school students.

Senate Bill 274 is an extension of Sen. Nancy Skinner’s initial plan to prevent suspensions for willful defiance for kids in grades K-5.

Advocates say willful defiance has been labeled as actions like talking back, wearing a hat, or excessive talking in the classroom. Most of these actions happen in a classroom daily, yet suspension is not the solution for every kid, they argue.

Advocates also point out that “defiance” suspensions disproportionately affect students of color, keeping them away from class and limiting their ability to learn.

The law also adds requirements that administrators document disciplinary or other interventions in the students’ records, but also requires administrators to report their actions and their reasoning to the referring teacher or administrator.

The OBSERVER’s two-part series “California’s Black Suspension Capital” revealed that Sacramento County suspended more Black students per capita than any other county in the state. Elk Grove Unified had the highest Black suspension rate and promised to reduce it.

Julie Winkel, director of student services with the Roseville Joint Union High School District, said the district implemented the policy for all ages when previous legislation was passed mandating protections for younger students seven years ago.

“Over the last several years we had already put into place the practice of trying to avoid any suspensions in relation to 48900(k),” she said, referring to the section of education code the law changed, “since the first bill that went through, excluding it from the younger grades.”

Winkel also discussed some challenges that the changes have created, namely the increased costs of supportive programs that keep students in school and the increased time investment for administrators when disciplining students.

“We have administrators that have asked me to try to figure out things like on-campus suspension and what that looks like keeping them [students] at school to be able to help with those interventions at school,” Winkle said. “Because we know just sending them home isn’t always effective.”

Winkle said she worries the new measures would take time away from administrators building the school community and instead put more focus on discipline to the detriment of other students.

“As we’ve transitioned to more restorative practices and things like that, it does definitely take much more of an administrator school day to work through problems and … through those interventions,” Winkle said. “The whole goal of things is to change behavior, and improve behavior and improve connection to school.”

As for reimbursing the schools for the increase in state-mandated time disciplining students, Scott Roark, public information officer for the California Department of Education, said in an email, “If the Commission on State Mandates determines the bill’s requirements to be a reimbursable state mandate, the state would need to reimburse these costs to local educational agencies or provide funding through the K-12 Mandate Block Grant.”

“I’ve been firmly against kicking kids out of school and sending them away,” educator Matt Johnson said. “ I feel that there are hundreds of other ways to discipline a kid before you kick them out and send them out to be mischievous somewhere else.”

Why Suspension ‘Defeats The Point’ 

Johnson was a boys basketball coach at Sacramento High School and now teaches at Capital College and Career Academy. He believes in connecting with kids and keeping them close so that he can have an impact on them. In his years around young adults at an impressionable age, he has seen the good and the bad with kids who were able to stay in a good spot and others who were pushed out.

Kourtni Pullen, a mother of eighth- and ninth-graders from Fair Oaks, said she felt conflicted about the bill but was supportive of measures to keep children in school and learning.

“Kicking them out of school, it defeats the point of educating kids. ‘Oh, you’re not doing well, so we’re gonna expel you.’ It doesn’t make sense to me,” Pullen said. “Obviously that kid needs more help, not less help, as long as they can implement some programs that help kids who are struggling in school with behavior or controlling themselves in the classroom environment.”

Pullen worried that on-site suspensions and other proposed solutions might still sell students short on their education.

Mother of three Latasha Rodriguez of Citrus Heights also expressed ambivalence about the law.

“I’ve been on both sides of the fence,” Rodriguez said. “My son is a wonderful student. I didn’t want interruptions to his studies. Then I have the other child that was the disruption in class that was making it hard for other kids concentrating.”

Rodriguez said her child went through interventions and that it took a team effort for his behavior to improve.

“Finally I said, all right, well, let me take him and put him in some extra counseling and work with him. I had a tutor come in that I paid to get him back on the right track,” Rodriguez said. “When I started paying more attention to his behavior problems in school, and outside of school, then he went back to school and he improved right away.”

Rodriguez said she saw suspension as a last resort, but one that schools still need to keep to promote order in the classrooms.

“If my kid is acting up and you guys have done everything possible, then you decide to send him home, at least I can say that the school tried and did its best,” Rodriguez said.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story was produced by Professor Philip Reese’s Sacramento State journalism students.