A Texas bill that could potentially make it easier to kick students out of class was discussed Wednesday in a Senate education committee hearing.
Senate Bill 245, authored by Sen. Charles Perry (R-Lubbock), aims to discipline students who misbehave in class.
The bill authorizes teachers to remove a student from class who “has been documented by the teacher to [repeatedly] interfere with the teacher’s ability to communicate effectively with the students in the class or with the ability of the student’s classmates to learn,” or “whose behavior the teacher determines is [so] unruly, disruptive, or abusive and [that it seriously] interferes with the teacher’s ability to communicate effectively with the students in the class or with the ability of the student’s classmates to learn.”
“Kids are just angrier these days,” Perry said, according to The Dallas Morning News (DMN). “We just have a different kid today than what we’ve had in the past.”
He also said Texas schools, in particular, had a “whole different demographic” compared to other places in the country.
Perry has previously made the statement, “Not all kids belong in the classroom anymore,” and he repeated that phrase once again during the debate on Wednesday.
The legislation would give teachers the ability to remove a student “based on a single incident” and allow schools to suspend students for longer periods of time or even place a student into a “disciplinary alternative education program.” The bill would also give more leeway to schools to expel students.
Representatives from the Texas Classroom Teachers Association testified in favor of the bill.
Opponents of the bill said that this type of bill would bring back the so-called zero-tolerance policies, which, in their view, would disproportionately affect minority students.
“We fear that this will result in mass removals of students, and potential chaos for an already substandard [Disciplinary Alternative Education Program] system that is not equipped to meet students’ educational, mental and behavioral health needs,” tweeted the IDRA, a nonprofit that seeks to achieve equal educational opportunity for every child, according to the DMN.
Teachers at Dallas Independent School District (DISD) Board of Trustees meetings have stated that teacher retention can be directly linked to how students treat them.
“We have teachers who are routinely facing classroom disruption, aggression, and violence without appropriate supportive solutions, which has led to teachers and students experiencing serious injury,” Elizabeth Farris, a DISD teacher, said at a January DISD meeting, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
Teacher retention has been a consistent problem in DISD and across the country.
“Teachers are done, and I don’t blame them. They should feel safe. They should feel respected,” Perry said via the DMN.