On Tuesday, The Maryland State Board of Education delayed any action on proposals to ensure that students who are suspended from school are dealt with fairly and quickly. The proposal would require a superintendent to decide within 10 days whether a student would be expelled or placed on a long-term suspension. However, if the student receives a long-term suspension, the parents have the right to appeal being held out of school during the appeal process.
The state board has been considering changes to the disciplinary codes because of cases in the recent year were students seemed to have been punished harshly for minor incidences, or had no access to schooling while under a long-term suspension. The superintendents’ association and teachers union are opposed to tightening the guidelines on how quickly suspensions are handled because they indicate that, “[T]here are few cases in which students were treated unfairly and prevented from returning to school during an appeal.” Their concern addresses the idea that the guidelines proposed would “burden” local school systems.
As a Baltimore city teacher, my school prides itself on the lack of suspensions and expulsions they approve throughout the year, for better or worse. However, towards the end of the school year, students “received” several suspensions. Parents complained about the “unfairness” and “extreme punishment” their child received, and therefore, suspensions were never followed through. Students began to view suspensions as a joke. Therefore, I can’t relate to how students are treated unfairly during the suspension process because that has never occurred in my school. Suspensions or expulsions are punishments for extreme behaviors, and I agree that they need to be addressed promptly in order to be effective.
Needless to say, the state board decided to proceed with the serious of small changes to how data on superintendents is gathered from local school districts and to change the definition of expulsion.
No comments:
Post a Comment