Fair Discipline

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Fair Discipline: Highlights

Going overboard on “zero tolerance.” ELC is busy working with parents, advocates and attorneys who are dealing with zero-tolerance excesses. Feel free to contact our Helpline for advice and information. Some examples of situations we've dealt with recently:

Maybe you didn’t know you had it, but it’s a weapon, so we have to expel you.” It’s true that even the child who takes a penknife to school by mistake is covered by PA’s strict no-weapons-in-school law. But the law doesn’t say he must be expelled. In fact, the law requires the school system to allow for discretion where appropriate.
"It could have been used as a weapon, so we’ve got to treat it as one.” A blade that came loose from a pencil sharpener? A vibrating pen?! These are examples of items that, we’ve argued, aren’t “weapons,” especially when they aren’t being used to threaten or harm anyone.
The Case of the Tardy Kindergartner. Can a kindergarten student who arrives late ten times be permanently expelled from a charter school? Fortunately, we didn’t have to go to court to find out, because we reached an agreement with the school to reinstate the child. Some penalties are just too severe for the offense!
Misconduct that's not connected to school. Drug use? Creation of an offensive web page? Generally, the law doesn’t allow schools to punish students for out-of-school conduct, unless the behavior actually disrupts the school program.
- However, some communities are trying to institute a policy where magistrates and police chiefs notify the school district when a student is cited for a summary offense (such as underage drinking) on the weekend. The schools then suspend the students from extra-curricular activities at school even before the student has a hearing before a judge. Click here for an article about this policy. We believe there are legal problems with such a policy. First, we do not believe schools have the authority to punish students for out of school conduct. Second, under this policy, disciplinary actions are based on allegations; a student who might be innocent is punished in school before he or she has had a hearing. If your school district operates such a policy, please contact us for additional information.

Guide to school discipline law. ELC's manual, Fairness in School Discipline in Pennsylvania: A Guide for Attorneys and Advocates Who Represent Children, can help you understand the rules.
New rules for children with disabilities. The amendments to the IDEA have resulted in some changes in the rules on discipline for students with disabilities. For a summary, see our publication, The Right To Special Education In Pennsylvania: A Guide for Parents (the chapter begins at page 33).
ELC in the courts:
- Courts have no jurisdiction to hear appeals of disciplinary transfers. Unfortunately, the Commonwealth Court has ruled that a school district's decision to transfer a child to an "alternative school for disruptive students" cannot be appealed to the local court of common pleas. The ruling came in an ELC case, Tyson v. School District of Philadelphia. While there may occasionally be other legal options in these cases, the general rule now is that once the district has made its decision, no further appeal is possible.
- Children returning from court-ordered placements. In a case brought by ELC and the Juvenile Law Center, the PA Commonwealth Court struck down part of a state statute under which children returning from juvenile delinquency placements to the Philadelphia School District were automatically assigned to alternative schools. Ruling in D.C. v. School District of Philadelphia, the court held that each child was entitled to an individualized decision on his or her fitness to return to regular school. The reasoning in the decision applies to all school districts that automatically assign children returning from placements to alternative schools -- not just Philadelphia.

For attorneys:

ELC's manual, Fairness in School Discipline in Pennsylvania: A Guide for Attorneys and Advocates Who Represent Children, provides detailed information on statutes, rules and cases on student discipline in PA.
Sign up for ELC’s Private Attorney Referral List for student discipline cases. If you already practice in this area, fill out our survey and you will be placed on ELC’s Student Discipline Private Attorney Referral List. In exchange, ELC asks that you commit to taking one student discipline case on a pro bono basis from ELC in the next year.
Represent needy families pro bono. If you are looking to develop some expertise in this area or otherwise would like to help out needy parents and students facing school discipline, fill out our survey to be a volunteer lawyer for a student discipline case. ELC can provide written materials and technical assistance to help you in your representation of these clients.

ELC'S POINT OF VIEW

Security and order are important if teachers are to be able to teach and students to learn. However, many schools have adopted rigid "zero tolerance" rules, under which students are punished harshly even for minor incidents and first offenses.

ELC believes that there must be a balance between keeping order and protecting students from unfair punishment. Thus, we are concerned with enforcing students' rights to clear notice of school rules; to a fair hearing; and, when discipline is imposed, to reasonable (rather than excessive) consequences.

We support measures to help improve behavior rather than simply exclude students from education. We are committed to protecting students' rights to freedom of speech and expression in school, and to making sure that schools do not overstep their legal bounds by punishing students for conduct unconnected to the school program. And we seek to ensure that children with disabilities are not punished for conduct that results from their disabilities, and that students whose primary language is not English are treated fairly in disciplinary proceedings.