A West Virginia bill aims to address the issue of disruptive and violent elementary school students across the state by giving teachers more authority over what punishment they can hand out.
The bill has now passed the state's House of Delegates, which means it is getting closer to the finish line, which is at Gov. Patrick Morrisey's desk. It has been two years in the making of the proposal, and it has been the top request of teachers across West Virginia.
West Virginia Proposes Student Discipline Bill
Teachers have argued that they have observed worsening student behavior, particularly among the youngest learners across the state, which has impeded their ability to teach properly. Del. Elliott Pritt, a public school teacher, said they look after and care for the other children who are being disrupted by a few of their classmates.
The Senate unanimously signed off on Senate Bill 199, followed by the House of Delegates passing the measures with a 94-3 vote. It detailed how and why teachers in kindergarten through sixth-grade classrooms are allowed to remove students who become violent, threatening, or intimidating toward staff or their peers, according to West Virginia Watch.
On top of this, the House amended the bill so that it includes pre-K classrooms that are on public school grounds. House Education Chair Del. Joe Ellington said that the bill helps teachers take care of all of their students.
Additionally, the proposed bill mandates that school counselors and social workers need to make efforts to determine if there is any underlying cause of the children's disruptive behavior. Some educators have linked these outbursts to West Virginia's ongoing substance abuse crisis and the high rate of kids in foster care.
Punishment for Disruptive Students
The new bill's support comes as there was similar legislation that made it to the legislative finish line last year but was not able to be implemented. Ellington noted that the proposals are things that they should have gone through at the time, noting that they have made beneficial changes since then, Metro News reported.
The bill allows teachers to immediately remove disruptive students from classrooms, notify their parents, hand out potential suspensions, or find possible and alternate learning environments for them.
When a student has multiple violations of school discipline policies, they could become subject to a behavior plan. If there is adequate progress made through this after two weeks, it will continue to be implemented, as per WVNews.
However, if no progress is seen, then the plan could be changed and will then be followed for at least another two weeks. When a student is removed from the classroom due to a lack of discipline, they will not be able to return until a risk assessment is completed.
