Reply to Thoughts on supsending preschool students

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Agree with OP and PP--I don't see how suspending a preschooler is at all appropriate or helpful. [/quote]

It's not appropriate, and it's not helpful.  It's what schools/teachers/principals who are short on appropriate resources, short on creativity, and short on patience (usually understandably so) do.  It just sends the child right back to where they most likely learned the behaviors that got them suspended, and most schools doing this to such young children also don't have the resources or make the effort to really talk to the parents.

But it's unacceptable.  Elementary schools should be able to handle these kids, even the out of control ones, in the school.  But that does take more staffing in terms of social workers and discipline people, plus a room (or multiple rooms) in the school to use for this.  But suspension is not the answer and sets the kids up for a school career of suspension and eventually academic failure and dropping out.  Even if these young kids are bad as hell they are almost always just doing what they've learned elsewhere and too young to "choose better" without structured interventions.  In other words, it's not their fault, and just "getting them out of the school" is not the answer.[/quote]

[b]Where's the data?[/b]
It looks like there were 100 suspensions for all pre-schoolers last year (after you take out the 200 AppleTree Learning Center "suspensions").  The suspension rate is incredibly low.  The story talks about "sent home early" as a "suspension".  How many of these were one-day suspensions vs. multi-day suspensions?  We cannot tell from the report.

There is too much talk about how "suspensions set the stage for repeated suspensions, failure in school and dropping out".  This is mixing up the problems of early childhood and later elementary, MS and HS.  Early intervention in the Pre-K and K years leads to fixing the problems, not labeling the kid.

Remember, Pre-K is about socializing the child and getting them to a place where they can learn in school.  Most of the early childhood educator's task is to mold behavior.  [b]Suspension is NEVER a FIRST CHOICE[/b] and as [b]the data shows, it is rarely invoked[/b].

One problem is that while "schools should be able to handle these children with problems" the contractor for OSSE who assesses children with problems, Early Stages Inc., sees its job as denying special services.  A suspension is the one way to document the problems in a way that Early Stages cannot deny.  Getting the (costly) intervention services is a prerequisite to being able to meet the child's needs in the school.

Thes pre-K suspensions are at the beginning of the child's entry into DC school system and may be the first time when very problematic behaviors are assessed by adults other than the family.   Addressing the issues that cause behavioral problems at school in these early years is a good thing.  If "suspension" is what is needed to get the resources to focus on the child's needs it is a GOOD THING.  Unfortunately, in DCPS the suspension is (often) required to get proper intervention for children.

The two suspension cases that I know of were this kind of problem... Early Stages said the kid was "fine" and didn't need any interventions or costly services.  Suspension got the children the special services they needed.   Children got the help they needed.  Children improved.  These are children that are 4 years old but are willing to push children down a flight of stairs.  Serial biters.  Screamers.  These are children with [u]serious [/u]issues that need to be addressed.  These are not "children being punished for behavior that is 'common' for the age group".   These are the kids who exhibit behavior that is far outside the norm of "common behaviors at the age".  They need help and a suspension is a tool to pry the help and the (costly) resources they need from the tight budgets.

About the AppleTree "suspensions" -- read the story.  It seems that at AppleTree repeated tardiness can lead to a "suspension".  If this is a problem there could be a better solution than what Grosso bill calls "suspension".  There should be an appropriate penalty for repeated tardiness -- and the penalty needs to be assessed on the irresponsible adult whose behavior can be molded.  Losing access to the free day-care provider for a day sends a message that will live with the parent through the child's school age -- get the kid to school on time.  When a child arrives late to class it disrupts the class and affects all the kids, not just the late arrival.

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