The term “school discipline” refers to a wide range of actions schools can take in response to student behavior that violates the rules set out in a student code of conduct and other disciplinary policies. While the most common school discipline consequences include detention, suspension, and expulsion, there are other disciplinary actions schools can take such as parent conferences, referral to counseling, peer mediation, restorative justice practices, referral to the school building level committee for consideration of a special education evaluation, and loss of privileges. While Louisiana law authorizes many types of school discipline, the focus of this chapter will be exclusionary discipline, specifically out-of-school suspensions and expulsions, because this is where the law provides heightened protections to students. As a result, this is where legal advocacy for students can and does have the greatest impact.
Additionally, it is important to recognize that exclusionary school discipline disproportionately impacts students of color and students with disabilities. During the 2017-2018 school year, nationally, African-American students were suspended and expelled at rates that were more than twice their share of total student enrollment.1 Although accounting for only 15.1% of total student enrollment, African-American students accounted for 38.8% of expulsions with educational services and 33.3% of expulsions without educational services. Likewise, African American students accounted for 31.4% of students receiving one or more in-school suspensions and 38.2% of students receiving one or more out-of-school suspensions. Students with disabilities are also overrepresented in exclusionary discipline. During the 2017-2018 school year, students with disabilities under the IDEA represented 13.2% of the total student enrollment nationally, but received 23.3% of all expulsions with educational services and accounted for 20.5% of students receiving one or more in-school suspensions and 24.5% of students receiving one or more out-of-school suspensions. These disparities grow even starker when the data is merged. For example, nationally, African-American students with disabilities under the IDEA accounted for only 2.3% of total student enrollment, but received 6.2% of one or more in-school suspensions and 8.8% of one or more out-of-school suspensions.
These disparities matter because it is well documented that students who are subjected to exclusionary discipline such as suspensions and expulsions are more likely to suffer a wide-range of negative educational and long-term outcomes including missed instructional time, decreased academic achievement, dropping out of school, and involvement in the juvenile or criminal justice systems—also known as the school-to-prison pipeline.2 Importantly, representation by an attorney or advocate in school discipline proceedings can lead to more favorable outcomes for the individual student, serve to interrupt the school-to-prison pipeline, and impact the larger systemic inequities students of color and students with disabilities face in school.
- 1U.S. Dep’t of Educ., Off. for Civ. Rts.,
- 2See U.S. Dep’t of Just., Civ. Rts. Div. & U.S. Dep’t of Educ., Off. for Civ. Rts., Nondiscriminatory Administration of School Discipline 3 (Jan. 8, 2014).