This chapter discusses the downfalls of schools' overreliance on exclusionary discipline practices and law enforcement, what the literature says about the alternatives, and how rural schools can leverage their unique strengths to incorporate best practices in ways that work for their communities. Too often students are removed from where learning, including the learning of replacement behaviors, is most likely to occur. Beyond simply the missed opportunities that come from missing days of school, data indicate that students who get suspended or expelled are also almost three times as likely to be in contact with the juvenile justice system in the next school year. This involvement with the juvenile justice system often evolves into involvement with the adult correctional system and lower levels of employment and post-secondary attainment. Teachers and administrators must find a balance between ensuring a safe classroom for all students, while also making sure that even students with behavior concerns have the supports they need to stay in school.
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Students’ behavior, and the ways undesirable behavior is handled by educators, play a major role in the degree to which schools are able to fulfill their missions of educating students and serving the public good. Too often, teachers and administrators respond to student misbehavior by punishing the student in ways that remove them from where learning, including the learning of alternative desirable behaviors, are most likely to occur. This often includes exclusionary practices like on and off campus suspension, seclusion and restraint, expulsion, ticketing, and even arrest. For many students, including those who qualify to receive special education services, this often can include a transfer to a more restrictive school setting.
When students are excluded from educational spaces they lose valuable learning opportunities, including instructional time and access to academic supports. But beyond simply the missed opportunities that come from missing days of school, or from being forbidden from attending the school campus at all, data indicate that students who get suspended or expelled are also almost three times as likely to be in contact with the juvenile justice system in the next school year (Horowitz et al., 2017). This involvement with the juvenile justice system often evolves into involvement with the adult correctional system, and lower levels of employment and post-secondary attainment (Aizer &, 2015; Mendel, 2023).
Educators, students, and parents all want schools to be safe places for student learning and growth. To make this a goal a reality, teachers and administrators must find a balance between ensuring a safe classroom for all students, while also making sure that even students with behavior concerns have the supports they need to stay in the classroom and be successful. They must find a way to manage student misbehavior in a way that keeps their most vulnerable students engaged in the classroom and out of the juvenile justice system. This chapter will discuss the downfalls of schools’ overreliance on exclusionary discipline practices and law enforcement, what the literature says about alternatives, and how rural schools can leverage their unique strengths to incorporate best practices in ways that work for their communities.
Changing Look of School Safety
Schools look quite different today than they did in the 1970s, and in some ways they better reflect the diversity of the country than they did in the past. Students with disabilities now have the right to be present in all areas of public-school life in a way they often did not prior to the passage of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) (known as the Education for All Handicapped Children Act between 1975 and 1990). In 1975 the Equal Educational Opportunities Act (EEOA) joined the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Plyler v. Doe in prohibiting discrimination against students who speak a language other than English and to ensure equal participation by removing language barriers for English Learner (EL) students. Teachers are somewhat more diverse in the second decade of the 21st century, although the profession is still comprised primarily of White women in many areas. In addition, armed police officers now roam the halls in ways that would have seemed unheard of just a few decades before.
Although school violence as a whole has been declining for decades, school shootings have become all too common in this country and have made students, parents, teachers, and administrators fearful. Often, this fear is focused on what the students themselves are doing, or could do, if they are given provocation and opportunity. The increased use of law enforcement officers in schools to address these safety concerns is a controversial one, especially in the wake of high-profile instances of police misconduct, but one that still receives high levels of public support overall (Benitez, et al., 2022). According to Connery (2020), the number of schools that reported having a police officer on campus has grown from 1% in 1978 to 58% of schools in 2020. As we look to the future this growth is expected to continue, and the National Association of School Resource Officers (NASRO) claims that “[s]chool-based policing is the fastest-growing area of law enforcement” (Connery, 2020, p.1).