School Climate

ELC Applauds Pittsburgh Public Schools’ New Code of Student Conduct

Aug. 5, 2014 – The Education Law Center applauds Pittsburgh Public Schools’ new code of student conduct, which reduces harmful zero-tolerance policies that disproportionally impact students of color and students with disabilities, while emphasizing greater protections and supports for English language learners, LGBTQ students, and parenting students.  The PPS School Board adopted the changes at its meeting on Aug. 4, 2014.

The new policy will go into effect when school resumes later in the month.

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Proposed changes in Pittsburgh schools’ student conduct code emphasize progressive and positive discipline

July 20, 2014 – by Eleanor Chute, Pittsburgh Post Gazette – The board of Pittsburgh Public Schools will vote Wednesday on Code of Student Conduct revisions that replace zero tolerance with more discretion, incorporate ideas from a student-proposed bill of rights and provide explicit protection of students for sexual orientation and gender identity expression.

Cheryl Kleiman, an attorney with Education Law Center, which worked with the district on the proposal, said this version eliminates remaining zero tolerance policies and allows individual discretion.

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What happened to Bache-Martin School?

May 16, 2014 – by William Bender and Solomon Leach, Philadelphia Daily News  – Fifth-graders have been sent to kindergarten. An eighth-grader was banished to first grade.

Draconian “behavior contracts” stipulate to whom certain children can speak and where they can eat breakfast.

These are among the incidents that have fueled concerns at Bache-Martin Elementary in Fairmount this year, and left parents asking: What has happened to our school?

Read the full story

 

Racial disparities in school discipline: A Radio Times discussion

March 31, 2014 – WHYY, Radio Times – New information released by the Department of Education shed more light on a disturbing difference when it comes to school discipline — minority students are suspended at a much higher rate than white students. The same applies to expulsions and harsher punishments and the problem is particularly acute in Pennsylvania. With more research to show that zero tolerance policies are ineffective, some educators are rethinking the whys and hows of school discipline.

WHYY’s Radio Times talks to Harold Jordan of the ACLU of Pennsylvania, Deborah Klehr of the Education Law Center, and University of Pennsylvania education professor Matthew Steinberg about the issues around school suspensions, expulsions and even arrests, particularly when it comes to minority students.

Listen to the discussion.

Philly district orders school police to stay out of level 1 offenses

March 25, 2014 – by Kevin McCorry, Newsworks – Philadelphia School District has directed school police officers to stop responding to calls related to Level 1 student conduct offenses. The proscribed violations range from “failure to follow classroom rules” to “truancy” to “verbal altercations” to “inappropriate touching/public displays of affection.”

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A criminalized school climate is the wrong path

November 20, 2013 – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette – In the Nov. 15 article on the decrease in court referrals from Brashear High School (“Concerns Raised Over Brashear Discipline”), Magistrate District Judge James A. Motznik presents the wrong solution for the wrong problem. Instead of advocating for increased court referrals, local judges should be pushing for smart school climate reforms that dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline while making schools safer.

Read the complete letter:
http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/letters/2013/11/21/A-criminalized-school-climate-is-the-wrong-path/stories/201311210127