Misha Karigaca was a high school principal when the Oakland Unified School District revamped its disciplinary policy in 2015 to end intentional suspensions.

Instead of sending a student out of class for a minor infraction, teachers were encouraged to de-escalate by speaking softly to the child or writing a note in class.

We’re not just going to move the problem and kick the can down the road to someone else, Karigaca said

.

The discipline models could be replicated in California public schools under legislation sponsored by Senator Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley). Senate Bill 274 would permanently extend the ban on suspensions for willful defiance in middle and high schools beyond 2025. The current law permanently bans these suspensions for students in kindergarten through

the 5th

fifth grade.

When the earlier ban came into effect, some teachers said their classrooms became chaotic because students failed to see the consequences of misconduct. Now even some educators who support the policy say they understand why teachers may be concerned they don’t have the resources to safely implement it at higher levels with older, and sometimes physically taller, students.

If you don’t learn basic tools to support and manage a classroom, then you’ll see behavior escalate to a point where you can feel a little bit of control or safety in the environment you’re supposed to be supporting, said Justine Bernacet, the lead seventh grade teacher at KIPP Sol Academy, a charter high school in East LA.

She supports the bill, but other educators are cautious.

The California Teachers Assn., one of the most influential advocacy groups in the U.S. Capitol, declined to support the bill unless amended. The union declined to say what changes it supports. A spokesman for the state’s other major teachers’ union, the California Federation of Teachers, also said it will not support the law unless it is changed.

Skinner amended the April 10 bill to specify that teachers could still remove disruptive and defiant students from class. They would be placed in a separate room with other children during the period. The one-class suspension could continue the next day, but the child would not be allowed to go to school at all.

Those kids who behave in ways that get them expelled are often the very kids we really need to keep in school, Skinner said at a hearing last week.

Oakland is among a handful of school districts, including Los Angeles, Pasadena, and San Francisco, that have already ended intentional defiance suspensions that punish students for nonviolent acts such as ignoring the teacher, wearing a hoodie in class, talking back to a teacher or disrupting class. class by tapping their feet. These disciplinary measures disproportionately affect black, Latino and Indigenous students, leading to higher dropout rates in these communities, according to a state report.

SB 274 would also prohibit suspension and expulsion of students for lateness or truancy. Teachers can still suspend students for more serious actions, such as physical assault, possession or use of drugs, theft, or bullying.

Banning students (for minor infractions) gives the teacher a false sense of control over their class, said Renee Thomas, a Hispanic high school teacher at San Diego Unified, where these suspensions are already banned. Instead of breaking that relationship, we need to build it up so that the student knows that we care about him and he understands that there is a place for him.

In 2014, the Pasadena Unified School District eliminated willful resistance and classroom disruption as reasons for suspending students. Julianne Reynoso, the district’s assistant superintendent of student welfare and support services, said the district was taking a trauma-informed approach to addressing the root cause of student behavior.

Under the new policy, suspension is a last resort, with a limit on the number of days they go out of school, followed by a community return plan, she said.

Reynoso said the number of suspensions has dropped significantly in recent years as a result of these efforts. Pasadena Unified had an overall suspension rate of 3.4% in the 2021-22 school year, and black student suspension rates were 8.4%. Ten years earlier, the district’s suspension rate was 8.8%, and black students were suspended at a rate of 17.3%.

Deliberate resistance in our district needed to end so we could focus our efforts on other means of supporting our children, Reynoso said.

Oakland Unified’s revamped discipline model also emphasizes alternative methods of removing students from school, such as restorative practices, harm recovery, and counseling.

The school district’s trajectory to that policy was the result of legal action. In 2012, four black students filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Educations Office for Civil Rights alleging racial harassment and discrimination. The federal agency investigated the district and found that black children were punished more often and harshly than other students.

We learned that suspending children for defiance and disruption was not a behavior change, but simply pushing the behavior away for a few days, Karigaca said.

Since the district banned intentional suspensions, Karigaca said his office gets just over 100 evictions a year. Before that, it was about 500 a year, he said.

Skinner’s latest bill builds on Councilman Roger Dickinson (D-Sacramento) AB 420, which in 2014 eliminated willful opposition as grounds for suspension or eviction

for students

in groups 1-3. Five years later, Skinners SB 419 banned it permanently in grades K-5 and high school until 2025

.

The Charter Schools Development Center was one of the few groups to oppose the extension of the legislation

to extend the ban on student suspension for deliberate resistance

in 2019. Eric Premack, the group’s executive director, said that while they have not yet taken an official position on SB 274, they are not confident that this bill will improve state academics.

We are deeply concerned about the gaps in academic achievement for various student subgroups, particularly African-American students, Premack said in an email. However, given the data, we were a little skeptical that this legislation, however well-intentioned, will set the needle to close performance gaps.