School discipline takes a needed, mindful change

Many Texans grew up familiar with the board of education. It was wooden, usually handled by a coach or assistant principal skilled in applying it with a swinging motion, rapidly, to one’s backside.

It popped and it hurt, and for many it was effective in discouraging behaviors deemed offensive or inappropriate at school.

Then it turned out that those were sweet, relatively innocent days of Texas public education.

Persistent and, especially, violent acts always brought the possibility of being expelled from school. When those acts became more prevalent, Texas lawmakers cracked down hard.

In 1995, the state developed “zero-tolerance” policies for certain acts and required students to be expelled. There was no room for school officials to consider extenuating circumstances, no alternatives to expulsion.

Some students caused no real harm, but their acts fell under the mandatory guidelines.

A few were lucky enough to encounter administrators who were smart, creative and compassionate enough to find ways around those guidelines, but uneven enforcement was unfair.

A new law passed by the Legislature last year is swinging the pendulum back the other way, toward more thoughtful decisions on expelling students.

The heart of the change is one of the simplest ways that legislators change laws: Senate Bill 107 by Sens. John Whitmire and Rodney Ellis, both Houston Democrats, changes the law to read that school leaders “may” remove students from school for certain offenses rather than “shall” remove them.

The new law also says schools must designate “campus behavior coordinators” to deal with discipline.

Those behavior coordinators must consider things like whether the student acted in self-defense, their intent or lack of intent, their disciplinary history and whether they have a disability that impairs their appreciation of right and wrong.

Zero tolerance was easier. Now schools are taking a more difficult but hopefully more productive route.

The key will be training teachers and administrators for it.

“We know the piece that we haven’t been able to provide yet, which is to give teachers more support,” Michael Steinert, assistant superintendent for discipline in the Fort Worth school district, told Star-Telegram reporter Yamil Berard. “If we’re not pulling kids out of school for bad behavior as much as we used to, we need to build more resources.”

Some teacher organizations are wary. No one wants to accept violent behavior.

But zero tolerance was not right. We can’t go back to that.

This story was originally published February 22, 2016 at 5:49 PM with the headline "School discipline takes a needed, mindful change."