Laws on Expulsion and Suspension and Independent Education Plans

Answer

      Education can be defined in many different ways by different people and institutions, but all available assessments of education, from any perspective, come to a consensus of it being a process in which one, a learner, acquires knowledge in different areas and through different means, including from experience, observation, and from others; teachers. The most predominant and relevant source of knowledge in the modern society is dispersed in a school setting. In any nation and particularly the Unites States, education has become mandatory, with the government putting laws and policies in place that encourage and facilitate its successful acquisition, and the work force making it a basic factor upon which employment is based. Education is arguably, therefore, a basic need.

            Formal education experiences a wide range of challenges and these include marginalization or segregating learners depending on their abilities and capabilities. The United States government makes it a priority to have an all-inclusive system of education (Carrasquillo, 2002). There are large numbers of students with learning disabilities and difficulties; physically, emotionally and behaviorally. There are laws and policies in place that ensure that all these children are included in the mainstream classrooms (Carrasquillo, 2002). Hitherto, children with special needs were in special schools.

            Furthermore, for educational institution to function efficiently, there are rules and regulations that are formulated in order to avoid chaos and dishevelment (Fisanick, 2012). The rules from federal and state governments are mandatory and their implementation is absolute (United States. 2012). These are categorized as laws and or policies and their main function is to ensure that there is order, fairness and uniformity in the methodology in which every school in a state and the country is administered. 

            Disciplinary laws provide a guideline upon which schools can generate a response to a situation that requires rectification, adjustment or consequences (United States. 2012). Some of these are locally drafted by schools, but, always based of government provisions.  Laws can be defined as the rules that a collective number of people in a community or country agree on and recognize to regulate behavior, and are enforced by certain penalties upon failure of inaction. 

            Two of the main laws that guide education programs in school in the country are: The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) (United States, 1995) and The Suspension and Expulsion law (New Hampshire., & Shaw, 2009). The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act is a federal law that demands that all public schools formulate an Individual Education Plan (IEP) for all children from the age of three years, until they graduate from high school, or turn 22 (United States, 1995). The Suspension and expulsion law are state laws that enable a school to temporarily stop active class attendance for a student, (suspension), or the permanent discontinuation of a child’s education in a particular school, (expulsion) as prompted by actions that are deemed unacceptable to different degrees by that school. These laws are created to ensure schools are run efficiently in order to provide the highest quality of education possible, in addition to providing opportunity for all learners to acquire education, regardless of their inadequacies or differences.

            Individual Education Plan, which is under The Education for All Handicapped Children Act (Public Law 94-142), gave opportunity to children that had formerly been marginalized and at the same time made it easier for those very children to be well provided for in their learning needs through differentiation programs that individualized their learning. This concept of Independent education programs emerged in the 1970s because there was quite an awakening of groups of people protesting for their civil rights and inclusion (Goodman, 1994). This wave reached and facilitated educational amalgamation. During that time the General Assembly of the United Nations declared Rights of Mentally Retarded People, stating that persons with retardation had to have equal rights to other people, including in educational contexts (United Nations, 1971, p. 368). In 1973, The National Advisory Committee on Handicapped Children, reassured the ruling by Commission of U.S Education in 1971, that all children with disabilities be accommodated by mainstream public schools. Prior to this, children with special needs were sent to special schools and completely excluded from the normalcy of the everyday classroom. After the ruling, the children with special needs were incorporated into regular classes, but this did not encourage their progress as there were no provisions for their needs to be accommodated. Classrooms and learning was homogeneous and the children with other needs could not keep up, relegating them to a new set of challenges. This prompted the fabrication of the individual education Programme, to level the playfield and give all children a fair chance at quality education. (Goodman, 1994).

            There have been several legal misinterpretation and misunderstanding of the individual education programs. During The Rowley versus the Board of Education case, decision (Tanenhaus, 2008), the Supreme Court announced its first ruling regarding the complexities of The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. This was a consequence of the misconstruing of the phrase, “free appropriate public education”. Restricting the definition of “appropriate” into a narrow lens that could be viewed by all in different perspectives proved difficult and in the end, the supreme court declared it as to be understood as “reasonably calculated”.  This does not guarantee specific outcome, but the process be sufficient under the given law (Han, 2017). The number of children with disabilities in schools has increased since 1976 (Han, 2017). This could be because of the more acceptable manner in which the government and schools are treating the matter, making more parents and children more open about learning difficulties and disabilities. 

            The Suspension and Expulsion law is a state law that is regulated by the District school board. Usually, these two are reserved as last resort measure for severe misbehaviors or reprehensible actions in school (New Hampshire., & Shaw, 2009). There is however, a very wide gap between a suspension and an expulsion. The severities of the two are at different levels and with great variations between them. Suspension sees a student lose out on school hours temporarily, whereas, expulsion pertains a learner being barred permanently from school, periodically or infinitely (United States, 1995). Reasons for either consequence being granted vary from delinquency to felony.

            The action of suspension and, or expulsion is rigorous and has several steps in its enactments that involve the parents, the teachers, the school administration and the student (United States, 1995). After all avenues to correct undesired behavior have been explored, and failed, then, the suspension option is explored. If that does not work, there are several steps and options that are considered and again, if those fail, then an expulsion is rendered. This is naturally, after consultation with the parents, the legal representative, the teacher(s), and the mental health consultant. If it is found that the student’s continued attendance and stay at school is a threat to themselves or others and that the expulsion would be better used to help the child, then that stance is taken.

            The No Child Left behind Act (2001) stipulates that schools should work closely with local governments in order to provide a safe learning environment and to fortify this action by enforcing suspension laws (Wilson, 2005). The Gun-Free Schools Act of 1994 (Pub L No. 103-882, §14601) Gave school districts a leeway to extend the non-tolerance for other items apart from guns in their schools.  The law was meant to stop students from bringing guns to school but in the end, only about 2% of all expulsions were due to guns, and the rest were for drugs, disrespect for teachers, alcohol consumptions and truancy (Sinclair, 1999). Due to the harshness and inflexible nature of the zero tolerance concept,  there was a large number of students being expelled from schools for a variation of unrelated issues that could have been dealt with alternatively. In the Florida Statutes 1006.07, student discipline is governed (United States, 2000) in which general guidelines are provided but no specifics as to what actions deserve what particular consequences. The problem of equity in consequences for different students to be suspended, therefore, ensues. There is no one way to measure punishment exactly for each student. There are many variables, and the law provides the provision for schools to customize the procedure and reaction to relevant situations, making uniformity difficult. The variation in the legal interpretation of the laws is too wide to help create consistency in the system.

           There are schools that are noncompliant in the legal mandates of Individual Educational Plan and implementation of suspension and expulsion acts. These schools are putting all students at risk. Failure to adhere to the inclusion of all students in education with specialized design, and ensuring their safety, is punishable by law(United States, 2015). Administrators are the gate keepers to this system and if there are liability cases, they derail learning for those involved and beyond. Punishments for such acts are subjective and range from termination of service for teachers or administrators and imposition of reforms in the involved schools.  In Corey versus the City of Chicago Board of Education of the City of Chicago,(Wallace, 2005), the school students had a case against Chicago Board of where students claimed lack of proper education for students with disabilities. The board ruled in favor of the complainants and supervised reforms at the schools enacted. These cases of legal battle have become more often and reforms are underway to ensure that all learners feel accommodated by their respective states and the federal government.

            Laws on Expulsion and Suspension and Independent Education Plans in the US are the backbone upon which the stability of the highest quality of education is dependent.   These policies are based off real problems that the education sector has faced through time and continues to. These, leveled with the natural evolution of ideas and concepts, consistently stretch and are customized to fit demands of the people they are intended to serve. With the civil rights movement, the inclusive education was conceived. This has progressed since 1975 to the present state where even emotional inadequacies are being considered as a factor to be looked into in regards to education.

            Discipline is essential in any learning institution and therefore, Suspension and expulsion or alternative forms of punishment of students from school are still being developed to better help learners become better individuals. This is especially challenging due to the wide spectrum of legal issues it encompasses ranging from personal safety, privacy laws and definite definitions of boundaries within or beyond school. Despite the challenges and shortcomings, these laws are serving their intended purposes, and like the thousand step journey beginning with one, this too shall come to maturity.