SAFE SCHOOLS ACT REVIEWED

Task Force Report Finds Inconsistencies In Implementation And In The
Number Of Students Suspended

Local education officials expect fewer kids will be kicked out of
school if changes to a controversial safe schools law are adopted.

In a report submitted last week, a provincial task force spearheaded
by Guelph-Wellington MPP Liz Sandals argues the five-year-old Safe
Schools Act causes schools to focus more on expelling and suspending
students than preventing the behaviour that leads them to that point.

The review also found there's no consistency in how the so-called
zero-tolerance act is applied.

Some school boards suspended very few students while others had a
rate of suspension of 36 per cent. "From board to board, and from
school to school, there's huge variability in the way they have
implemented the Safe Schools Act and in the number of kids who are
actually being suspended," Sandals said.

Education Minister Sandra Pupatello says the Liberal government will
take the summer to review the report.

Last year, the Upper Grand District School Board recorded 3,015
suspensions in its 11 high schools, which hold about 12,200 students.
That's twice the per capita rate of the Waterloo Region District
School Board, where 2,491 suspensions were handed out last year
among roughly 20,300 high school students. Maggie McFadzen,
spokesperson for Upper Grand, wouldn't hazard a guess as to why her
board's suspension rate would be so much higher than the neighbouring
board's.

At Wellington Catholic District School Board, there were 253
suspensions among roughly 2,400 high school students in the 2004-05
school year.

That's almost half the rate of the Waterloo Catholic District, which
handed out 1,222 suspensions among a high school student body of 6,800.

Don Drone, director of the Catholic board, suggested that's proof his
board's focus on so-called graduated discipline, or giving students
progressively tougher punishment rather than immediate suspension, is
working.

Partnering with city police to increase their presence in high
schools has also helped curb violent behaviour that previously might
have got a student booted out of school, he said.

"You don't overreact to something that can be corrected. But if
somebody messes up and it's corrected without a suspension, and they
do it again, you have to up the consequences," he said.

But Drone conceded the act is causing the number of suspensions in
his district to jump.

The year before the act came into effect, there were 182 suspensions
in the Wellington Catholic board.

That same year, there were 3,027 in Upper Grand high schools.

Students can be kicked out of school for a number of reasons,
including smoking on school property or chronic absences. The act
imposes automatic suspensions for drug trafficking or assault.

McFadzen said the implementation of the Safe Schools Act was
responsible for a jump in the number of expulsions in the public
board. In 2000-01, the year before the act came into effect, there
were less than six students expelled from Upper Grand schools. The
following year, that number jumped to 34.

In the 2004-05 school year, the number of expulsions in Upper Grand
was 45, including four at the elementary school level.

Recent expulsion numbers from the Catholic board weren't readily
available, although there were six in 2003-04.

While expulsions between boards may vary less than suspensions,
there's great differences when it comes to the programs available to
kids who are expelled. In Upper Grand, for instance, students on
long-term expulsions are offered a chance to go into an alternative
discipline program in Waterloo because there is none locally.

Long-term expulsions are considered permanent, or until a child
completes an alternative education program.

Sandals' task force also proposes taking away from principals the
power to expel students. That's a decision only the school boards
should make, the report suggests.

Both McFadzen and Drone said the impact of such a change would be
minimal. The practice locally, they say, has been for principals to
defer expulsions to the school board, anyway.

The report also suggests doing away with short-term expulsions, which
can last up to 21 days. McFadzen approves of that idea, because there
are no alternative education programs provided for students with
short-term expulsions.

"They're just out of school and they're not learning," she said.

"These kids aren't benefiting from not being in school."

Sandals said her task force wants the government to review
alternative education programs, such as the one in Waterloo, to see
if the money could be better spent to make the services more
accessible among school boards.

The Upper Grand Board recorded 1,994 suspensions at the elementary
level last year. Overall, suspensions were down five per cent from
2004-03. At the Wellington Catholic board, there were 108 suspensions
in elementary schools.

That district's total suspensions were up over nine per cent from the
previous year.

McFadzen and Drone said their boards need more resources and
partnerships with community agencies -- particularly those that
specialize in children's mental health -- to better deal with
students' behaviour.

Drone also took exception to the report's assertion that children of
minority backgrounds are more likely to be suspended under the act.

Sandals, a former trustee on the Upper Grand board, said criticism of
the act as a 'zero-tolerance' law is inaccurate.

She said the act actually makes room for so-called progressive
discipline.

"We're saying 'when something happens, there needs to be a
consequence. But the consequence isn't automatically throwing the
student out, there should be a range of consequences," she said.

"There are kids being suspended or expelled who can be dealt with in
other less extreme ways."

The MPP added that it's in society's interest to keep children in
school. Those who are kicked out are more likely to not finish
school, become involved in crime and earn a lower income.

"A zero-tolerance policy is working at cross-purposes with what all
the research tells us to do, which is to keep kids engaged in
learning," Sandals said.