CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Executive Director of the West Virginia School Board Association Jim Brown is concerned about the elementary school student discipline bill, which could resurface in a special session with state lawmakers late next month.
SB 614, which was sponsored by Senate Education Committee Chair Amy Grady, made it out of the state Senate in this year’s regular session but couldn’t get over the finish line with delegates in the House.
Brown, who said he doesn’t normally speak at board meetings, made an exception during a state Board of Education meeting last week. He has his concerns with the bill.
“The urgency of a current issue led me to express my concerns,” Brown told the board.
Gov. Jim Justice is planning on calling lawmakers into special session to deal with a number of issues. Justice said this past week that the special session will likely be in late May. Senate President Craig Blair has been speaking with Justice about getting the school discipline bill on the agenda.
“I’m working on attempting to get it on the call for the special session,” Blair told West Virginia Watch earlier this month. “We’re wanting education to be better across the board. I’m a huge advocate for this.”
The student discipline bill would give elementary school teachers more authority when dealing with disruptive students in their classroom. Grady’s bill would give teachers the ability to determine if a student’s behavior is too violent, threatening or intimidating or creates an unsafe learning environment in the classroom.
A teacher would determine if the student should be removed from the classroom and placed in a behavioral intervention program provided by the county. If a county doesn’t have access to such a program, the parents of the student would be notified of the situation, the student would be prohibited from riding the bus and, if the student is not picked up by the end of the day, school representatives may notify law enforcement.
Students would then not be permitted to return to school until they complete a risk assessment. The estimated return time for a student going back to school would be 1-3 days. Brown said the turnaround time for a student who’s out of the classroom, issued a risk assessment and trying to return to school takes longer than anticipated.
“From experience, it’s not days but in many cases weeks,” said Brown, a former school teacher and superintendent.
Once a risk assessment is complete, a student would return to school in a provisional basis for 5-10 days. However, Brown said there are not enough mental health services to accommodate a student with behavioral issues.
“If another incident occurs within that time frame, the student is then places in an alternative learning environment for the rest of the semester or school year,” Brown said. “These students would likely be placed on homebound services due to a lack of alternative learning environments and their behavior will go unaddressed.”
Brown said the bill doesn’t take the right approach when dealing with a student’s disruptive behavior. He believes there are underlying issues that are not getting enough attention.
“We must further gather data on the prevalence rate of mental health issues among our youth and address the severity of their crisis,” he said.
Brown is calling for the establishment of a statewide task force made up of community leaders, educators, mental health professionals, parents and policy makers to tackle mental health challenges present for some students and staff of West Virginia schools.
WVEA President Dale Lee had previously said the bill was not perfect but did contain some good first steps.
“We need to address the violent student. I have no problem with that. There has to be an avenue the teacher can feel safe in the classroom,” he said.
A survey conducted by the WVEA showed that 62% of more than 700 teachers said they are experiencing higher levels of burnout. 35% said they are not at all confident they will continue working in an education career.
Lee agrees with Brown that more needs to be done in the state’s education system when it comes to mental health.
“Let’s really address the mental and emotional well-being of these students and provide a place that we can work on their academics and their behavior,” he said.