Cal Progress Report: Uniting to Stop the Swinging Door of School Suspensions
There’s a growing realization that when students are suspended, the next step after an early exit from school is often an early entry into the justice system.
Public Counsel Education Rights Director Laura Faer writes at California Progress Report that “civil rights advocates, judges and law enforcement sometimes wind up on different sides of the public debate about juvenile justice. But on the issue of school discipline, we’re speaking the same language.”
Students who start out as a name on an attendance chart wind up as another number in our nation’s graduation crisis.
So how do we stop the swinging door of school suspensions and juvenile justice encounters?
We propose an evidence-based and educationally sound approach to keeping students in school and on track for their futures. As Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye said in her State of the Judiciary speech on March 19, “If we aren’t responsible for our youth, if we don’t return them to school, if we don’t keep them in school, if we don’t help them become productive citizens, we are paving the way for entry not only into the juvenile justice system, but the adult justice system.”