An advocacy group based in Charlottesville, Virginia says discipline policies in the state's public schools are often too harsh, and fail to make schools safer.
Angela Ciolfi is the legal director of the JustChildren program -- a part of the non-profit Legal Aid Justice Center -- the group that released the study. She says their research revealed that across the state, students with special needs and African-American students are disproportionately impacted by what JustChildren calls "harsh discipline" practices.
"Last year, Virginia students with disabilities received short-term suspensions at a rate 2.4 times as high as non-disabled students, and black students were four times as likely to be suspended or expelled as white students," says Ciolfi.
JustChildren also says many school districts are not providing education for students while they're being suspended.
Fairfax County School board member Dan Storck says Fairfax does a better job with this than most counties -- by offering options like alternative schools for all ages and computer-based instruction for children not allowed to be around other students.
"We do a lot of things, but we still have some holes in our system and one of those holes is with respect to suspensions -- students who are suspended should not be sent home, that's my personal belief," says Storck.
Pressure from parents after the suicide of a Fairfax teen in January caught up in the disciplinary process forced the board to revamp the way it handles students with behavior problems earlier this year -- the new policy includes keeping audio recordings of all discipline hearings, and allowing principals more leeway to decide punishments themselves.
