partnership with the under told
stories project from Minnesota.
As we near the end of another
school year, administrators and
teachers say they are concerned
about ongoing problems with
student behavior.
Conduct that can be more
disruptive than before the
pandemic started.
In a moment come on then the
vase will have a conversation
she recorded earlier about state
proposals to deal with that.
Let's start with what we heard
from teachers across the
country.
>> My name is Joanna and I am a
high school alternative
education teacher.
I used to say I used to worry
about just a few kids.
Now there is the opposite.
It is probably just a few kids I
am not worried about.
>> I am a kindergarten teacher
in Las Vegas, Nevada.
I am seeing things like students
attacking other students or
throwing furniture at other
students.
In one instance I had a student
open up a pair of scissors that
she took off my desk and threw
them at my face.
>> I am a proud creative writing
teacher.
Many students are overwhelmed.
They are going through a lot of
different things.
And unfortunately many schools
are not built to address those
things.
>> My name is Jen heiter and I
am the English department
chairperson and senior English
teacher for bremen high school
in bremen, Indiana.
What we've seen here at bremen
high school and I believe around
the country is an extreme uptick
in mental health issues with our
students.
>> We're seeing that many
students are more fearful, more
wary of putting themselves out
there, more anxious in general.
And that anxiety can present
itself in a number of different
ways.
It can look like unchecked
anger.
It can look like isolation.
>> The last couple of years have
been very interesting.
We've definitely seen a spike in
behaviors.
It could be anywhere from
hitting, biting, spitting,
throwing furniture.
And so at times it's a little
unsafe in the classroom.
>> Many students may not be
willing to dig a little deeper
and kind of explore what they
may be feeling.
So it is easier to do something
in the classroom to get kicked
out.
That way I'm getting what I
want.
I don't have to deal with that
teacher.
I don't have to deal with what
what I'm working through.
So let me get kicked out, let me
leave all of this.
But I do feel like the better
option would be to get them to
stay.
>> W]hat we're not equipped to
do is to identify students'
needs when they have mental
health issues such as anxiety,
depression, bipolar disorder,
and other things that normally
do hit in the high school and
middle school ages.
>> It's a shame because we're
there to educate the future of
America.
That's what we want to do.
And we're having a really hard
time doing it with the behaviors
that are presenting themselves.
>> I would suggest that our
legislators respond to this by
putting more money into training
teachers.
And I would ask the question,
are we responsible for our
students' mental health?
If so, and if we're the ones who
need to respond to it, then we
need to be trained adequately to
respond well, because a lot is
hanging in the balance here.
Amna: In response to concerns
about students' behavioral
issues, including some violence,
a number of states are now
moving to change their laws,
putting forward bills that
empower teachers with greater
disciplinary powers.
That has raised more questions
and concerns about the impact on
students.
Gonzalez tracks all of this
closely.
She is a professor at the uc
college of the law in San
Francisco.
She joins me now, professor
Gonzalez, welcome.
As you've been tracking
lawmakers in a number of states
are now moving forward,
proposing bills that make it
easier to discipline students
and remove students, including
harsher penalties for younger
kids.
Before we get into the details
of some of those bills, why are
we seeing so many of those bills
right now?
What's the argument behind them?
>> I think the argument is
exactly what you're hearing from
the teachers right, which is
about safety.
The problem is that the argument
isn't matching safety with
healthy school communities and
we, you know, we have spent so
much time moving past punishment
and really thinking about what
is in the best interests of
educating our children. And we
have forgotten in this moment in
this post-covid reality or if
you can call it that where our
young people in our teachers are
sitting at the front lines in
these places of tension, that
we actually have to promote and
build those positive school
climates.
So it's much easier to go for
the tool that was in existence
before and say, just get out.
We heard that as well from
teachers, saying it's much
easier to just leave the
classroom.
So it is all of that.
It's the unwillingness to put
money, it's a very short-term
measure, and it's not thinking
about how we're actually
building safe and healthy
schools.
Amna: Let me give a few specific
examples here so folks know what
we are talking about.
In Arizona, for example, there's
a bill that would lower the age
students can be suspended to
five.
So that now includes
kindergartners in Florida.
Teachers would have more
authority to remove students who
they deem disobedient or
disrespectful.
In Nebraska, teachers will be
allowed to use force in the
classroom to physically restrain
students who they deem
disruptive.
On the spectrum of responses are
there disciplinary powers you
think teachers should have and
those they shouldn't?
>> Absolutely.
Teachers need to be able to have
safe and healthy classrooms.
Right? And I keep using those
words together because those
actually are the essential
components of what we're talking
about.
But what teachers shouldn't be
forced to do is to make these
discretionary decisions in the
moment that says you're
disobedient, or you are
disrespectful or you engaged in
disorderly conduct, because so
often those are coded for other
types of behaviors.
So the North Carolina law, for
example, that also exists
includes inappropriate language
and dress code violations.
Dress code violations and
inappropriate language aren't
the things that aren't keeping
our schools safe or aren't
making teachers feel like they
can't teach students, and
children feeling like they can't
be engaged in learning.
So it's about a continuum of
support, right?
How are we thinking about
multi-tiered interventions?
What is it to turn to the
evidence and say, where do
positive behavioral
interventions exist?
Where do the restorative
practices exist?
How do we put it into practice
what we know works, to ensure
that the social, emotional and
the academic learning is
happening.
Amna: What about the potential
impact on students here?
I mean, we know, given history
and studies that black and brown
students disproportionately face
disciplinary measures when
they are in school.
What are you worried about the
impact of this could be?
>> I'm just worried that the
data has already been so
disturbing.
We know that non-white students
and particularly black children
are disciplined more severely
across every category.
Just this year, scientific
American released a study that
half of the 250 kids expelled
from preschool, younger than age
five, were black boys.
And then nationally, preschool
children are suspended more than
once.
And who are those children?
Those are black kids.
And so we just have to have a
real clarity that these offenses
and the ways in which were then
pushing young people out of
their schools, lead to a whole
set of lifelong consequences. So
it's not just oh, the
disparities exist. The
discipline gap exists, and
ultimately a student decides to
not come to school, stop
engaging in the classroom.
The risk factor of missing 15
days of school for suspension
means you are seven times more
likely to drop out, but that
means that you will have less
access to jobs, housing,
participating in society voting
and even your life expectancy.
And then of course, I think
there's so much evidence about
entry into the juvenile adult
systems.
Rice university's education
research consortium just
released data that for every
suspension students face, they
are 7.5% more likely to contact
the juvenile justice system and
who those young people are are
black students, latinx students,
and our native and indigenous
students as well.
I also want to bring attention
to the fact that it's not just
in the context of race or in the
context of gender, but students
who are also experiencing
learning disabilities.
Historical data to current data
shows us across all categories
of discipline, suspensions,
expulsions, referrals to law
enforcement.
It is students with disabilities
who can lose as much as three
times as much instructional time
from discipline and that that's
most acute for our black
students in particular.
Amna: Professor Gonzalez dare, I
ask, what's the answer here?
I mean, teachers need a way to
be able to control and keep safe
classrooms.
We know students have behavioral
issues.
After what they've endured the
last few years.
Budgets are finite.
What can people do?
>> We look at exactly what we've
been doing so far right?
There's been incredible
investments over the last
decade.
In what our whole child and
multi tiered systems of support.
That's the academic, that's the
behavioral and that's a social
emotional.
That's the evidence based trauma
informed, high quality core
rriculum.
So what does that mean?
Positive behavioral
interventions have long-standing
records of having positive
outcomes, social emotional
learning.
All in legislation as well.
Restorative justice, all in
legislation.
So instead of the laws that
we're talking about, we should
be scaffolding up those and then
also coupling those with
investments and mental services.
Because when you have
multi-tiered system
interventions, you flip the
script.
You increase graduation rates
, you increase academic
achievement, increase test
scores, increase grade
completion, you engage students.
There are less truants, they're
coming to school and you're in a
positive climate, and that's
when children thrive, and that's
when they learn
amna: Alright.
That is Talia Gonzalez,
professor at the uc college of
the law in San Francisco.
Joining us tonight, professor.
Thank you.
>> Thank you so much.