The Illinois Attorney General and ISBE Release Non-Discriminatory Student Discipline Guidance | Franczek P.C.

[co-author: Hannah May]*

The Workplace of the Illinois Legal professional Common and the Illinois State Board of Training (ISBE) not too long ago issued new non-regulatory guidance to help public Okay-12 college districts with making use of pupil self-discipline insurance policies in a non-discriminatory method, in accordance with State and federal regulation. As a reminder, federal anti-discrimination legal guidelines, together with the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX, IDEA, Title II, Part 504, and the Individuals with Disabilities Act, prohibit public Okay-12 colleges from discriminating in opposition to college students primarily based on components equivalent to race, colour, nationwide origin, incapacity, faith, or intercourse. Illinois regulation additionally prohibits discrimination in opposition to college students primarily based on these protected traits.

The steerage particularly focuses on the disparate influence of faculty self-discipline practices on college students of colour, college students with disabilities, and different weak college students, noting that punitive and exclusionary self-discipline insurance policies are disproportionately more likely to influence these populations and contribute to the “school-to-prison pipeline.” Moreover, college districts with insurance policies or practices that create an unjustified disparate influence primarily based on a protected attribute could also be topic to investigation by the Illinois Legal professional Common’s Workplace, which has authority to research all violations of legal guidelines regarding civil rights and discrimination, in addition to to undertake obligatory enforcement measures.

To fight such disparities, the steerage suggests that faculty districts ought to:

• Scrutinize insurance policies or practices of disciplining college students primarily based on subjective of discretionary offenses (equivalent to defiance, disrespect, or disruption), as these practices could also be weak to implicit bias.
• Assessment disciplinary enforcement of hair and gown codes to make sure enforcement doesn’t impose a disparate influence. Cautious evaluation of a majority of these insurance policies may also help college districts in compliance with the Jett Hawkins Law, which was not too long ago handed in Illinois and prohibits colleges from creating insurance policies on gown codes that prohibit hairstyles traditionally related to race or ethnicity.
• Fastidiously take into account and outline the position of faculty useful resource officers (SROs) within the college setting and guarantee acceptable coaching of SROs.
• Deal with pupil habits considerations holistically via psychological well being professionals, counselors, and social staff.

The steerage additionally means that colleges might encounter a larger want for social-emotional and behavioral helps on account of trauma attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic. The steerage encourages colleges to offer psychological well being helps to all college students who want it, together with those that have skilled trauma; and to the extent that these wants meet the definition of a incapacity beneath IDEA or 504, colleges have a accountability to offer providers and helps. As college students return to in-person studying, the steerage means that colleges ought to meet college students the place they’re via evidence-based restorative justice, trauma responsive, and culturally related practices and interventions, reasonably than punitive disciplinary approaches to behavioral challenges.

To help college districts in creating and implementing non-discriminatory pupil self-discipline insurance policies and practices, ISBE presents a complete model policy toolkit and links to pattern insurance policies, nationwide sources, and restorative justice instruments.

*Hannah Might, a third-year regulation pupil at Loyola College Chicago College of Regulation, is a Loyola Training Practicum Scholar at Franczek P.C.