After strong objections surfaced from educators around the state, the Maryland State Board of Education delayed Tuesday any action on proposals to ensure that students who are suspended are dealt with fairly and quickly.
Board members seemed unlikely to be swayed by opposition, but they asked state Education Department staff to gather more information from those who object to their proposals.
The proposal would require a superintendent to decide within 10 days whether a student would be placed on long-term suspension or expelled. If the student receives a long-term suspension, parents have the right to appeal. Some students are being held out of school during the appeal process.
The board proposes that students must be able to return to school on the first day after they have served their suspension, even if the parents file an appeal.
The state board has been considering changes to the disciplinary codes because of cases in the past year in which students seemed to have been punished harshly for minor infractions or had no access to schooling while under long-term suspension.
4 comments:
This is why there are so many problems in schools today. The State gets involved and tells local schools who they can and cannot suspend. I remember a principal telling me one day that he was no longer allowed to suspend any more African American students. This was in a school with 76% African American student population. Of course there were going to be a large number of AA students suspended compared to whites. If schools have too many referrals, they are labeled as persistently dangerous by the state, and nobody wants that label on their school. So referrals are suppressed and discouraged by the administration. Then students figure out that nothing will happen to them, so they do as they please and disrupt learning for others. How do we fix this problem? Lets hold teachers accountable for the student's success on the state test. Then you'll see more stories of schools cheating on the test in order to make themselves look good, like what is happening in Baltimore City.
I completely agree with this comment!!! This is exactly the situation in the public schools!
There is a very small minority of students who make the learning environment hard on all students. Suspension is now a joke, when Sarbanes got his hands on you it was 3 days for smoking 3 days for fighting, and if you got in trouble on the street you got in trouble in school also. Students dared not talk back or swear at teachers, expulsion if you even thought about it. some things need to be brought back the way it was before the thugs took control and the state allowed it.
The first comment here says it all.
If you do anything to screw up the stats, the state will drop the hammer on you.
Let's let the kids get away with murder to keep those stats looking good instead of maybe catching them early on and getting them straightened out.
So glad my kids are long gone from public schools.
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