Bills in the Alabama Legislature would set statewide disciplinary standards for K-12 public schools, including setting rules for when students should be removed from classrooms and a uniform process for suspensions and expulsions.
House Bill188 passed through the House Education Policy Committee unanimously last week. The bill would establish definitions and timetables for suspensions and expulsions. Sponsor Rep. Terri Collins, R-Decatur, said the bill puts minimum standards in place “so that all our (school) systems have that baseline of positive influence.”
Sen. Rodger Smitherman, D-Birmingham, is sponsoring the same bill in that chamber and it’s awaiting a Senate Education Policy Committee vote. Smitherman has advocated for this bill over multiple sessions. He could not be reached for comment.
“We are one of the few states that has no due process set in law in code,” Collins said. “So what we wanted to do was to take some of the best practices that we saw around the state and make a minimum standard.”
When deciding disciplinary actions, administrators must consider the age of the student, disciplinary history, the seriousness of the violation and “whether a less intervention would appropriately address the behavior of the student.”
The bill also lays out procedures for hearings and notices if long-term suspension or expulsion is considered.
“Sometimes for whatever reason, one principal, assistant principal or teacher might just have a conflict of personality with a certain student,” Collins said. “Making sure that there is a process before you take it criminally that you get to present your case, your side of the story one more time before a long-term suspension.”
At a public hearing in the House Education Policy Committee earlier this session, parent Chris Sutton talked about the less than 24-hour notice he received for his daughter’s disciplinary hearing.
“We have problems within the system where there is no judge there,” Sutton said. “It’s whatever the president of the local board, the city board who is voted in by the city council, they’re not accountable to the public by any stretch of the imagination.”
“Accountability to the people for an appointed person has to come from somewhere and it can’t come by proxy from someone else.”
Current law allows for school boards across the state to create their own disciplinary standards.
At a February public hearing, Randolph County Superintendent John Jacobs spoke in opposition to the bill, citing the need for local decision making.
“In my county, when we develop our code of conduct, we have input from parents, teachers, administrators, we have students on our policy committees, so that those steps are outlined for everybody and everybody has input into that,” Jacobs said.
As originally filed, the bill had age limits for some disciplinary actions, but some were removed from the substitute bill approved last week.
Separately, a bill approved in the Senate Education Policy Committee in February would ease some of the “difficulties classroom teachers have in restoring order,” the sponsor Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, said.
Orr’s Senate Bill 157 lays out a standard process for allowing teachers to remove unruly students from class. While the bill advanced out of committee, Orr said he’s open to discussions and amendments from school groups.
As currently written, the bill allows a student removed from class three times within one month can be considered for in-school or out-of-school suspensions or placement in an alternative school.
Democrats on the committee said students with special needs should be exempt from the bill, something Orr was agreeable to considering.
The bill is awaiting a Senate floor vote.