RALEIGH, N.C. — State lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, including several on a critical education reform committee, say they’re committed to seeking solutions to help ensure some of North Carolina’s most vulnerable students get the public education they’re constitutionally guaranteed.
As WCNC Charlotte has extensively reported, students with disabilities are missing weeks of learning every year due to districts’ reliance on out-of-school suspensions, routinely as punishment for disruptions caused by their disabilities. Those students’ families and advocates call the exclusionary discipline practice discrimination.
WCNC Charlotte previously analyzed federal records and discovered North Carolina suspends students with disabilities, at-length, more often than any other state. That data doesn’t include cases where kids are sent home early or placed in a homebound setting indefinitely with limited instruction.
In an interview with WCNC Charlotte, United States Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona called this “a very important issue.”
“As a former school principal, I remember how challenging it was when students communicated that they have needs or deficits in skills through mal-adapted behaviors,” Cardona said. “But it’s our responsibility as educators to make sure that the students that need more education get more, not less.”
While he credits the American Rescue Plan with helping put more social workers and psychologists in schools, Cardona said the federal government continues pushing local governments and states to do their part to fully support these students.
“It’s an issue that if not addressed boldly will lead to wider disparities,” he said.
A WCNC Charlotte investigation found more than a dozen other states have taken bold action, banning suspensions and/or expulsions, primarily for the youngest students, with exceptions.
“Do you think North Carolina should ban this kind of discipline?” WCNC Charlotte asked Rep. Laura Budd (D), NC-District 103.
“Unless it includes acts of violence against another, yes,” she replied.
Budd sits on the North Carolina House’s K-12 Education Committee. The Mecklenburg County Democrat said she supports a ban, but not at the expense of other kids in the classroom.
“You have to provide your school districts with alternative means to manage their schools and the students within them,” Budd said. “You cannot tell someone, ‘Don’t do this,’ and then not give them what they need. … It is appalling that we have a disciplinary rate for children with disabilities, especially those who are people of color or from low socioeconomic backgrounds, that the response to a special need is to punish. That is not what we should be doing. We need to meet the need, accommodate the need and educate.”
Ahead of the General Assembly’s short session in the coming months, Budd said Democrats and Republicans must agree on major public school investments to properly address this problem.
“I think sometimes we take shortcuts — it’s easier to discipline after the conduct has occurred than it is to invest in preventive discipline,” she said. “The kids are getting punished as a result and they shouldn’t be. They don’t intend to be disruptive, but you’re punishing them as if they did have intent and therein lies the problem.”
“We’re going to have to put our money where our mouth is,” Budd said. “I think one of the things they can do is put this issue at the top of the agenda.”
