Misbehavior: Alternatives to School Referrals and Arrests

Remove Police from Schools or Limit Police Involvement through MOUs. 47 Law enforcement in schools should be avoided as much as possible. As the presence of police in schools has dramatically increased in the last several decades, so have the number of children being referred to law enforcement by schools and arrested for school-related misbehavior. In 2018, the Dignity in Schools Campaign developed an updated set of Model Policies to Fight Criminalization based on recommendations from its 2013 Model Code on Education & Dignity.48 The resources provide a framework for removing police from schools by offering legislative models and suggested language for policies that aim to decriminalize the physical school environment and infrastructure. For school districts that maintain relationships with local police, it suggests they adopt a publicly accessible Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that limits the role of any law enforcement personnel who come in to contact with schools by limiting their role to only conduct that threatens or results in serious bodily harm

Pass the Restorative Practices in Schools Act. 49 Introduced by Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) and Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN-9) in 2022, the Restorative Practices in Schools Act aims to help schools and districts build safe and inclusive learning environments by encouraging the use of restorative practices in place of punitive practices (like zerotolerance policies). The legislation would establish competitive grants to help schools implement restorative practices, hire support staff, provide training, and develop a curriculum. The bill would also establish school and student safety standards, which schools must meet before receiving a grant. Schools with the most demonstrated need would be prioritized. Under the legislation, the Government Accountability Office would also be required to conduct a study on the school-to-prison pipeline as well as evidence-based interventions, and ED would be required to establish a data-tracking system for the use of restorative practices in U.S. schools.

Shift Funding to Provide Mental Health Services. 50 SROs are police, not counselors. Students deserve trained mental health professionals in their schools. School counselors, nurses, social workers, and psychologists are frequently the first to see children who are sick or struggling with mental health issues, especially in low-income districts.51 Up to 80% of youth in need of mental health services do not receive such services in their communities because existing services are inadequate. However, 70% to 80% of youth who do receive mental health services receive them in their schools. While data shows that the presence of these school-based mental health providers can improve outcomes for students and overall school safety, funding for police in schools has been on the rise while most public-school districts face a critical shortage of mental health services. Millions of students are in schools with law enforcement but no mental health support staff, despite evidence that increased police presence in schools can create less inclusive school climates and make students feel less safe.

Shift Funding to Teacher Pay and Training. 52 If misbehavior can be stopped or avoided within the classroom, then students may not encounter the criminal legal system. Teachers can play a larger role in preventing misbehavior by increasing a school’s capacity to manage classrooms and disruptive behavior.53 Further, investments in teacher salaries could improve the overall quality of the teaching workforce and teacher retention.54

Fund High-Quality After-School Activities. Research shows that afterschool programs, with consistent engagement, adequate staffing, and high-quality programming can improve education outcomes, school attendance, and social and emotional learning.55 Consistent participation in afterschool programs can lower dropout rates and reduce the achievement gap for low-income children.56 For older students, afterschool programs can reduce risk behavior and help them gain need college and work skills.57 However, roughly 25 million children are unable to access such programs due to barriers with availability, transportation, and accessibility.58

Conclusion

While progress has been made in recent years to reduce the use of suspensions in U.S. schools, the use of school referrals and arrests has not improved. Like suspensions and expulsions, the harmful impact of student referrals and arrests cannot be overstated. Referrals and arrests disrupt educational attainment, sow feelings of distrust and alienation, and tend to be unevenly applied to students of color. Rather than criminalize and remove them from the community, students deserve school discipline policies that support them in their school environments, improve public safety, and reduce systemic disparities.

Endnotes

1 Office of Civil Rights, An Overview of Exclusionary Disciplinary Practices in Public Schools for the 2017-18 School Year (2021). U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights. Retrieved from https://ocrdata.ed.gov/assets/downloads/crdcexclusionary-school-discipline.pdf.

2 Losen, D. J., & Skiba, R. J. (2010). (rep.). Suspended Education: Urban Middle Schools in Crisis. Southern Poverty Law Center. Retrieved from https://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/Suspended_Education.pdf

3 Id.

4 Justice Policy Institute. (2011). (rep.). Education Under Arrest: The Case Against Police in Schools. Retrieved from https:// justicepolicy.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/educationunderarrest_fullreport.pdf.

5 Hirji, R. J. (2018, January 16). 20 Years of Policy Advocacy Against Zero Tolerance: A Critical Review [web log]. Retrieved from https://www.americanbar.org/groups/litigation/committees/childrens-rights/articles/2018/winter2018-20-yearspolicy-advocacy-against-zero-tolerance-critical-review/#:~:text=ABA%20Efforts%20and%20Policy,student’s%20 history.%22%20Robert%20G.

6 Chen, S. (2010, February 18). Girl’s Arrest for Doodling Raises Concerns About Zero Tolerance. CNN. Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/02/18/new.york.doodle.arrest/index.html; Fox News. (2016, November 18). Florida school suspends girl for bringing butter knife to lunch. Fox News. Retrieved from https://www.foxnews.com/us/florida-schoolsuspends-girl-for-bringing-butter-knife-to-lunch. See also Bartosik, M. (2009, November 9). Kids Arrested for Food Fight. NBC Chicago. Retrieved from https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/kids-arrested-for-food-fight/1890025/.

7 Office of Civil Rights (2021), supra, note 1.

8 Mitchell, C. (2021). (rep.). What You Need to Know About School Policing. The Center for Public Integrity. Retrieved from https://publicintegrity.org/education/criminalizing-kids/what-you-need-to-know-about-school-policing/

9 Office of Civil Rights, Referrals to Law Enforcement and School-Related Arrests in U.S. Public Schools (2023). U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights. Retrieved from https://ocrdata.ed.gov/assets/downloads/Referrals_and_ Arrests_Part5.pdf.

10 Id.

11 Blad, E. (2014, January 8). New Federal School Discipline Guidance Addresses Discrimination, Suspensions. Education Week. Retrieved from https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/new-federal-school-discipline-guidance-addressesdiscrimination-suspensions/2014/01.

12 Id.

13Thurau, L. H., & Or, L. W. (2019). (rep.). Two Billion Dollars Later: States Begin to Regulate School Resource Officers in the Nation’s Schools A Survey of State Laws. Strategies for Youth. Retrieved from https://strategiesforyouth.org/sitefiles/ wp-content/uploads/2019/10/SFY-Two-Billion-Dollars-Later-Report-Oct2019.pdf. See also National Association of School Resource Officers. (2023). Frequently Asked Questions. National Association of School Resource Officers. Retrieved from https://www.nasro.org/faq/.

14 Kupchik, A. (2010). In Homeroom Security: School Discipline in an Age of Fear (pp. 44–84, 88). essay, NYU Press. Retrieved from https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=BzacO6Vl1tQC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&ots= 0hj0X16VLK&sig=y9LYJEwE3NU3PxPRzBLBrfb5odM#v=onepage&q&f=false.

15 Justice Policy Institute. (2010). (issue brief). The Presence of School Resource Officers (SROs) in America’s Schools. Retrieved from https://justicepolicy.org/research/policy-brief-2020-the-presence-of-school-resource-officers-sros-inamericas-schools/.

16 Heitzeg, N. A. (2009). Education Or Incarceration: Zero Tolerance Policies and The School to Prison Pipeline. Forum on Public Policy, 2009(2). Retrieved from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ870076.

17 Office of Civil Rights (2021), supra, note 1.

18 Sorensen, L. C., Bushway, S. D., & Gifford, E. J. (2022). Getting Tough? The Effects of Discretionary Principal Discipline on Student Outcomes. Education Finance and Policy, 17(2), 255–284. https://doi.org/10.1162/edfp_a_00341

19 Bernburg, J. G., & Krohn, M. D. (2003). Labeling, Life Chances, and Adult Crime: The Direct and Indirect Effects of Official Intervention in Adolescence on Crime in Early Adulthood. Criminology, 41(4), 1287–1318. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-9125.2003. tb01020.x

20 Pearman, F. A., Curran, F. C., Fisher, B., & Gardella, J. (2019). Are Achievement Gaps Related to Discipline Gaps? Evidence From National Data. AERA Open, 5(4). https://doi.org/10.1177/2332858419875440

21 Davison, M., Penner, A. M., Penner, E. K., Pharris-Ciurej, N., Porter, S. R., Rose, E. K., Shem-Tov, Y., & Yoo, P. (2021). School Discipline and Racial Disparities in Early Adulthood. Educational Researcher, 51(3), 231–234. https://doi. org/10.3102/0013189x211061732

22 Kirk, D. S., & Sampson, R. J. (2012). Juvenile Arrest and Collateral Educational Damage in the Transition to Adulthood. Sociology of Education, 86(1), 36–62. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038040712448862

23 Bacher-Hicks, A., Billings, S., & Deming, D. (2019). The School to Prison Pipeline: Long-Run Impacts of School Suspensions on Adult Crime. https://doi.org/10.3386/w26257

24 Office of Civil Rights (2023), supra, note 9.

25 Ball, A., Zhang, D., & Molloy, M. C. (2022, February 10). ‘She looks like a baby’: Why do kids as young as 5 or 6 still get arrested at schools? Center for Public Integrity. Retrieved from https://publicintegrity.org/education/criminalizing-kids/ young-kids-arrested-at-schools/

26 Heitzeg, N. A. (2009). Education Or Incarceration: Zero Tolerance Policies and The School to Prison Pipeline. Forum on Public Policy, 2009(2). Retrieved from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ870076

27 Dionissi Aliprantis and Daniel Carroll, What Is Behind the Persistence of the Racial Wealth Gap?, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, 2019, 1, https://www.clevelandfed.org/newsroom-and-events/publications/economic-commentary/2019economic-commentaries/ec-201903-what-is-behind-the-persistence-of-the-racial-wealth-gap.aspx. See also William Darity Jr. et al., What We Get Wrong About Closing the Racial Wealth Gap, Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity, April 2018, https://socialequity.duke.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/what-we-get-wrong.pdf; Craigie, T.-A., Grawert, A., Kimble, C., & Stiglitz, J. E. (2020). (rep.). Conviction, Imprisonment, and Lost Earnings: How Involvement with the Criminal Justice System Deepens Inequality. Brennan Center for Justice. Retrieved from https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/ research-reports/conviction-imprisonment-and-lost-earnings-how-involvement-criminal

28 Craigie, (2020), supra, note 27.

29 Whitaker, A., Torres-Guillen, S., Morton, M., Jordan, H., Coyle, S., Mann, A., & Sun, W.-L. (2019). (rep.). Cops and No Counselors. American Civil Liberties Union. Retrieved from https://www.aclu.org/report/cops-and-no-counselors

34 Fernandes, A. D. (2019). How Far Up the River? Criminal Justice Contact and Health Outcomes. Social Currents, 7(1), 29–45. https://doi.org/10.1177/2329496519870216

35 Jones, C. (2022, June 16). At this Oakland High School, Restorative Justice Goes Far Beyond Discipline. Ed Source. Retrieved from https://edsource.org/2022/at-this-oakland-high-school-restorative-justice-goes-far-beyonddiscipline/673453

36 Oakland Unified School District. (n.d.). Restorative Justice Homepage. / Homepage. Retrieved March 17, 2023, from https://www.ousd.org/restorativejustice

37 Arnold, E. K. (2012, July 11). Oakland Leads Way as Restorative Justice Techniques Enter Education Mainstream. The Center for Public Integrity. Retrieved from https://publicintegrity.org/education/oakland-leads-way-as-restorative-justicetechniques-enter-education-mainstream/

38 Jones (2022), supra, note 35.

39 Results for America. (2022). School-Based Restorative Justice: Oakland, CA. Economic Mobility Catalog. Retrieved from https://catalog.results4america.org/case-studies/rj-in-schools-oakland#overview

40 Id.

41 Office of the Press Secretary, Economic Perspectives on Incarceration and the Criminal Justice System (2016). Retrieved from https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2016/04/23/cea-report-economic-perspectives-incarceration-andcriminal-justice

42 Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development, Stullich, S., Morgan, I., & Schak, O., State and Local Expenditures on Corrections and Education (2016). U.S. Department of Education Policy and Program Studies Service. Retrieved from https:// www2.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/other/expenditures-corrections-education/brief.pdf

43 Thurau, L. H., & Or, L. W. (2019). (rep.). Two Billion Dollars Later: States Begin to Regulate School Resource Officers in the Nation’s Schools a Survey of State Laws. Strategies for Youth. Retrieved from https://strategiesforyouth.org/sitefiles/wp-content/ uploads/2019/10/SFY-Two-Billion-Dollars-Later-Report-Oct2019.pdf. See also, Hunt, H., & Nichol, G. (2021). (rep.). The Price of Poverty in North Carolina’s Juvenile Justice System. North Carolina Poverty Research Fund. Retrieved from https://law.unc.edu/ wp-content/uploads/2021/04/juvenilejustice-povertyreport2021.pdf

44 Blitzman, J. (2021, October 12). Shutting Down the School-to-Prison Pipeline. American Bar Association. American Bar Association. Retrieved from https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/human_rights_magazine_home/empoweringyouth-at-risk/shutting-down-the-school-to-prison-pipeline/. See also Losen, (2010), supra, note 2.

45 National Association of State Boards of Education. (2019). (rep.). Limits on Referrals to Law Enforcement. Retrieved from https:// statepolicies.nasbe.org/health/categories/social-emotional-climate/limits-on-referrals-to-law-enforcement; See also Blitzman (2021), supra, note 44.

46 Id.

47 Dignity in Schools Campaign. (2018). (rep.). Model Policies to Fight Criminalization. Retrieved from https://dignityinschools.org/ wp-content/uploads/2018/10/ModelPolicies_FightCriminalization.pdf. See also Blitzman (2021), supra, note 44; Whitaker (2021), supra, note 29.

48 Dignity in Schools Campaign (2018), supra, note 47.

49 Bennet, Cohen Introduce Restorative Practices Legislation to Address the School-to-Prison Pipeline. (2022, March 21). Michael

M. Bennet: U.S. Senator for Colorado. Retrieved from https://www.bennet.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2022/3/bennet-cohenintroduce-restorative-practices-legislation-to-address-the-school-to-prison-pipeline

50 Cromer, D., Moses, M., Gordon, H., Manson, D., & Young, A. (2021). (issue brief). Reducing the School to Prison Pipeline in Maryland. UMBC Public Service Scholars Programs. Retrieved from https://publicservicescholars.umbc.edu/wp-content/uploads/ sites/448/2022/08/School-to-Prison-Pipeline-1.pdf. See also Whitaker (2021), supra, note 29; Whitaker, A., Cobb, J., Leung, V., & Nelson, L. (2021). (rep.). No Police in Schools: A Vision for Safe and Supportive Schools in California. American Civil Liberties Union Foundations. Retrieved from https://www.aclusocal.org/sites/default/files/field_documents/no_police_in_schools_-_report_-_ aclu_-_082421.pdf

51 Whitaker (2021), supra, note 29.

52 Cromer, D., Moses, M., Gordon, H., Manson, D., & Young, A. (2021). (issue brief). Reducing the School to Prison Pipeline in Maryland. UMBC Public Service Scholars Programs. Retrieved from https://publicservicescholars.umbc.edu/wp-content/uploads/ sites/448/2022/08/School-to-Prison-Pipeline-1.pdf

53 Id.

54 Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development (2016), supra, note 42.

55 National Conference of State Legislatures. (2022). (rep.). Supporting Student Success Through Afterschool Programs. Retrieved from https://www.ncsl.org/education/supporting-student-success-through-afterschool-programs

56 Id.

57 Id.

58 Afterschool Alliance. (2022). (rep.). America After 3PM. Retrieved from http://afterschoolalliance.org/documents/AA3PM/AA3