Leader Editorial: Discipline rule makes little sense

A member of the state Assembly, Roger Dickinson (D-Sacramento) successfully carried a bill through legislation this year that he hopes will put the brakes on school officials who excessively take advantage of a portion of state education code that allows them to suspend students for willful defiance.

Dickinson’s bill, which goes into effect Jan. 1, amends the education code to the effect that students in kindergarten through third grade cannot be suspended for defying instructions from an educator, a school official or a supervisor while involved in school-related activities. Nor can any student from kindergarten through 12th grade be expelled from their campus for being defiant. According to Dickinson’s website, the goal of the bill is to keep students in the classroom “on track to graduate, and out of the criminal justice system.”

Apparently many agree with him. At least 85 agencies and organizations — including the ACLU, the California State PTA and the California School Boards Assn. — backed the legislation. Not sharing their enthusiasm, Burbank Unified officials spoke up last week, objecting to the fact that a useful and relatively painless disciplinary hammer is being yanked from their toolbox.

Burbank Supt. Jan Britz says the new law ties educators’ hands. She’s right.

Burbank school board member Larry Applebaum calls the bill “insane” and points out that the very students who are already inclined to willfully defy school authorities “are going to be empowered to do more.” He makes a good point.

We are unsure of where “excessive use” of the existing rule is taking place, but, speaking on our local level, we’ve seen no evidence that Burbank officials are guilty of tossing kids left and right out of classrooms for defying their teachers or principals. The amendment eliminates a key allowance for disciplinary action and, we suspect there are other districts across the state where educators feel the same way the Burbank leaders do. This legislation seems to be well-intentioned, but it is clearly overreaching.