Advocacy to Disrupt the School to Prison Pipeline
2023-2024 Legislative Priorities
The “school-to-prison pipeline” is, in reality, two pipelines that combine to drive students out of the classroom, away from a pathway to success, and towards or into the juvenile or criminal justice system:
The first pipeline involves frequent suspensions and expulsions that remove students from their classrooms and disconnects them from their school community. Once outside of school, these students are far more at risk of justice system involvement. Youth are more than twice as likely to be arrested during periods when they are suspended or expelled from school even if a student has no prior history of delinquent behavior.
The second pipeline involves arrests in school for behaviors better resolved through alternative approaches. Students are arrested and sent into the system for levels of disruptive behavior that in many cases could be handled through restorative or therapeutic approaches, leading to system involvement rather than addressing the underlying needs of that behavior.
School Discipline
An Act Enhancing Learning in the Early School Years Through a Ban on School Exclusion in Pre-Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade (FAct Sheet - Rep. Decker H.453/ sen. Gomez s.289)
The Young Student Exclusion Ban Act aims to improve educational outcomes by banning Massachusetts public schools from suspending or expelling students in Pre-K through 3rd grade. Black and Latinx young children are four and three times, respectively, more likely than their white peers to experience school exclusion. The bill expands this exclusion ban to 4th grade one year after enactment, and to 5th grade two years after enactment.
An Act to remedy disparities in students’ educational achievement (FACT SHEET - Reps. Ultrino & Meschino H.597/ Sen. Jehlen S.294)
Though students facing serious allegations are afforded due process protections based on constitutional rights, current law driven by anti-youth narratives of the 1990s, allows a student charged (prior to arraignment or adjudication) with any felony, regardless of seriousness, to be suspended or expelled from school without the opportunity for any due process in the juvenile court. This bill would require that students are entitled to all of the procedural protections before exclusion.
School Policing
An Act Relative to Safer Schools (FACT SHEET - Rep. Khan h.517/ Sen. kennedy S.300)
Building on the reforms of the policing reform bill of 2020, this bill improves accountability and transparency for school-based policing while providing grants for districts to develop more holistic safety practices that do not rely on school-based police.
An Act Relative to the Location of School Resource Officers (FACT SHEET - Rep. Sabadosa H.565)
Placing police in schools has not resulted in improved school safety. In fact, it may hinder the trust and communication schools need to be safe. A 2020 study found that school police placement led to increased reliance on surveillance, unreasonable search and seizure, inappropriate sharing of confidential information, and an emphasis on formal controls that create an environment of fear and distrust, diminishing students’ willingness to confide in school staff when they are experiencing problems. This bill removes SROs from schools, locating them at the nearest police station, and task SROs as the primary responders to school-based emergencies.
Transparency, Accountability and Equity
An Act to reduce exclusionary discipline for grooming and dress code violations (FAct Sheet - Rep. Fluker Oakley H.478/Sen. Gomez S.290)
Last year, Massachusetts enacted The CROWN Act, which limited school disciplinary actions that were aimed at protective and natural hairstyles. This legislation would provide a necessary complement to that law by banning exclusionary discipline of students on the basis of dress code violations. This legislation would also prevent discriminatory treatment by requiring that all school dress codes allow students to wear clothing that is connected to their religion or ethnicity (including hijabs, yarmulkes, scarves, and head wraps), ensure that dress codes are applied with neutrality to all students, maintain gender neutrality regardless of gender identity, and have clear, specific, and objective definitions. There are additional student protections that ensure that dress codes are not enforced through direct physical contact with a student nor force a student to undress in front of another person.
An act to ensure equitable access to education, including special education services, for all students in massachusetts (FACT SHEET - rep. decker H.454/ sen. creem S.249)
The lack of publicly available data illustrating bias and disproportionate outcomes impacting students on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, disability and English learner status, and the intersection of those identities, has a negative impact on our collective ability to effectively address these disparities and drive positive change. This legislation directs the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) to publish data that it already collects in a manner that is analyzed by student subgroups so that it is easier for educators, parents, students, communities and policymakers to use it to improve outcomes for specific groups of students. While data is currently accessible by race, ethnicity, sex, English Learner status, and disability, this bill takes the important added step of making “cross-variable” data accessible, which illuminates the performance of students who fall in multiple or overlapping categories. This level of transparency allows those seeking to create positive change the type of in-depth information necessary to identify student groups that are most vulnerable, most impacted by disparate treatment or most in need of support or intervention.
For previous reform, check out prior efforts: