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Who’d’ve thought: Superintendent says changes ‘will help teachers teach and students learn’

A small school district in southern Delaware has implemented a “5 strikes you’re out” discipline policy beginning this spring, a move the state’s largest paper called “divisive.”

Sussex County’s Laurel School District noted last month any student who “accrues more than five violations of the student code of conduct” during the year (“excluding chronic tardiness or unexcused absences”) will face possible “alternative placement, long-term suspension or expulsion,” the Delaware News Journal reports.

Laurel Superintendent Shawn Larrimore (pictured) said the changes “are designed to strengthen [the] approach to discipline” and “will help teachers teach and students learn.”

He added only about two percent of district students are “near the threshold” for the most serious disciplinary measures.

While the Delaware Dept. of Education called Laurel’s decision a “local” matter, the News Journal noted it is “at odds” with department guidance.

The DOE advocates “more restorative interventions, fewer out-of-school suspensions and corrective plans for those schools showing significant disparities.”

The state ACLU called the Laurel district’s changes “deeply concerning.”

“This policy mirrors a dangerous trend of exclusion that undermines efforts to create equitable and supportive school environments” and “echoes the failures of the war on drugs – a reactive, punitive response that led to mass incarceration without addressing underlying causes,” said Senior Policy Advocate Shannon Griffin.

MORE: Report: Obama school discipline policies a colossal failure

Griffin added “Excessive suspensions and alternative placements operate the same way: Leaving students marginalized and schools no closer to resolving behavioral challenges.”

The University of Delaware’s Brittany Zakszeski said “the risk of continuing with exclusionary discipline practices like [Laurel’s] is just the further exacerbation of some of the well-known racial and socioeconomic gaps in school discipline.”

A specialist in school psychology, Zakszeski said “taking students out of traditional schools can limit academic learning, while discipline continues to be discriminately applied.”

The state’s most recent report on school discipline shows Laurel “over-suspends” black, male, and lower-income students, along with those with disabilities.

Delaware’s seven-year-old Senate Bill 85 essentially codifies Obama administration discipline guidelines and directs the state to sanction districts which show “disproportionate” statistics.

Presently, about 50 public schools need to give the state a “school discipline improvement plan” due to “over-suspending certain groups over three years.”

Nevertheless, Laurel’s move to more punitive discipline comes in the wake of a Delaware Education Association teacher survey showing 60 percent of its members were “more likely to leave” the public schools due to “unaddressed student behavioral challenges.”

MORE: Media, education ‘experts’: Retraction of Obama school discipline guidelines ‘racist,’ ‘troublesome’

IMAGES: PhotographeeDOTeu/Shutterstock.com; Laurel School District

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