Kids in a classroom. (Photo: Shutterstock/Syda Productions)
Gov. Newsom Signs Bill Banning Public School Suspensions for ‘Willful Defiance’
Apparently because a school district bans suspensions for willful defiance, they then celebrate ‘the successful elimination of suspensions for willful defiance’
By Katy Grimes, October 11, 2023 8:21 am
While Governor Gavin Newsom’s children attend an exclusive private school in Sacramento, he just signed SB 274 by Sen. Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley), which bans school suspensions for “willful defiance.”
SB 274 “extends the ban on suspending a student on the basis of having disrupted school activities or otherwise willfully defied the valid authority of supervisors, teachers, administrators, school officials, or other school personnel.” Skinner prefers “restorative justice” measures, and uses the Oakland Unified School District as exemplary of this policy. “Oakland Unified School District has banned the suspension or expulsion of students based solely upon willful defiance. Oakland Unified offers restorative justice programs in their schools.”
Apparently because a school district bans suspensions for willful defiance, they then celebrate the successful elimination of suspensions for willful defiance. We call this pretzel logic.
This legislation “will exacerbate the havoc in our schools by stripping teachers and principals of tools to deal with ‘willfully defiant’ kids,” Lance Christensen posted on X. Yes, “willful defiance” is not longer an offense resulting in suspension. Christensen ran for California Superintendent of Public Instruction.
“Expect more teachers to resign.”
I've warned about the dire consequences of public school classes without discipline. The governor just signed SB 274 which will exacerbate the havoc in our schools by stripping teachers & principals of tools to deal with "willfully defiant" kids.
Expect more teachers to resign. pic.twitter.com/cI5MAE1TBS— Lance Christensen (@lancelands) October 10, 2023
Did we tell you that the Los Angeles Unified School District is celebrating “National Coming Out Day” this week? LAUSD has the lowest student test scores in the state, with more than 75% of the children not even performing at grade level.
Maybe LAUSD can schedule “National Learn Something Day” in the near future.
Many have warned of the consequences of public school classrooms without discipline. We are already seeing horrific videos from violent classrooms.
Sen. Skinner said, “Suspending youth for low-level behavior issues leads to significant harm, including learning loss and a higher likelihood that affected students will drop out of school completely. Students, especially those with behavioral issues, need to be in school where teachers and counselors can help them succeed.”
As if that is working…
This ban on suspensions for “willful defiance” began during Gov. Jerry Brown’s final two terms as governor.
In 2014, Gov. Brown signed AB 420 by then-Assemblyman Roger Dickinson (D-Sacramento), which placed limits on the use of school discipline for “the catch-all category” known as “willful defiance.” 2014 Bill analysis reported that willful defiance behavior accounts for 43% of suspensions issued to California students, and is the suspension offense category with the most significant racial disparities. AB 420 had a sunset date, which has been extended several times.
With teachers getting attacked and beat up in public schools, wouldn’t more discipline be the proper response? Wouldn’t proper decorum and behavior requirements help regain civility in California’s public schools?
Apparently not say those who support the “defund the police” movement, and merely redefine the terms when their policies fail.
One glaring example also involved Roger Dickinson: following passage of AB 109, the faux “Public Safety Realignment,” then-Assemblyman Roger Dickinson, the Legislature and Governor Brown deviously passed Assembly Bill 1050, ordering the Board of State and Community Corrections to redefine “recidivism” in an obvious effort to manipulate and downplay recidivism statistics. Why? The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation reported that 75 percent of recidivists commit their re-entry crime within a year of release. The previous definition of “recidivism” was “arrests,” rather than “convictions,” and it was within one year, not three years. Additionally, study after study has shown that between 6 percent and 10 percent of criminals are responsible for up to 70 percent of all crimes committed.
A parent group reported that in the LA Unified School District, the school board “removed school police from campus during the defund the police movement. Teachers and principals already struggle with discipline. They say High School and Middle School teachers, principals, and parents want police. The Los Angeles Teachers Union, the “UTLA wants counselors.”
This clearly isn’t a push coming from parents, but is being driven by radicals and the California Teachers Association labor union. The end result will be in a permanent poverty class of uneducated young people in California.
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September 25, 2018 -
“Oakland Unified School District has banned the suspension or expulsion of students based solely upon willful defiance. Oakland Unified offers restorative justice programs in their schools.”
Student test scores in Oakland are in the toilet – it gets no worse in California than Oakland. Now, the whole State gets to be Oakland. Good job, guys!
Exactly!
Yeah, no kidding, Lance Christensen, “expect more teachers to resign.” For a start! Then I guess the districts can hire more young hypnotized sheep to go along unquestioningly with every stupid edict, and cough up teachers union dues, and provide plenty of slightly-warm bodies to march and chant like the pissed-off living dead in their endless angry rallies and teachers strikes.
Common sense alone tells us that entirely abandoning discipline in schools is the WORST policy that could ever be implemented. DUH! As usual this is a disastrous policy that HARMS all students, including those who need discipline the MOST. Please let’s never, ever forget that these radical Marxist freaks in charge are the ones who are responsible for ruining these lives. With this policy alongside “Coming Out Day” (and all the rest of it) we know these people are shooting for chaos, anarchy, and societal collapse. So as you know they consider this idiocy a job well-done.
As Katy Grimes pointed out, Hair-gel Hitler Newsom’s children attend an exclusive private school while Democrat Sen. Nancy Skinner, the 69 year old prune faced communist from Berkeley who authored SB 274, doesn’t have school age kids. It’s not surprising that lawless radical leftist Democrats in the legislature support this legislation, but why would the California Teachers Association labor union support it when teachers will have to deal with students who act out in willful defiance with no consequences? It’s no wonder that more and more concerned parents are pulling their kids out of California’s public schools but whatever means necessary leaving behind a permanent poverty class of uneducated kids who have few other options?
Can’t miss a day of indoctrination! Don’t want them to forget about how wonderful fascism is and all their wonderful leaders!
It’s true, you’re so right, Belkabeast. Also districts receive Average Daily Attendance money from the state for butts-in-seats. That’s why the public schools LOVE open borders, and aren’t as panicky as they used to be about truancy and the like, although they’d like to have that money too, of course. But without desperate illegals and their kids steadily streaming in, the CA public schools would be SCREWED into non-existence, considering the considerable numbers who have now wised up and abandoned them.
Great point Showandtell. It’s all about the money for these people. Nothing to do with helping kids, in fact it’s often the opposite. Heard from a teacher the reason they push ADD drugs so much in schools is because they get extra funding for having disabled kids. These are some seriously demented people!!!
You said it, Belkabeast. And I hadn’t heard that ADD-disabled one! – so thanks. But I do remember back at the height of when I was obsessively watching my local school district (some 15 years ago) that the superintendent put out the word to teachers and staff to RECRUIT ALL STUDENTS — whether they were able to pay or not —- to sign up for (at the time) the Free-and-Reduced-Cost-Breakfast-and-Lunch Program so they would qualify as a poverty district and thus receive wads of either State or Fed money, maybe both. This also eventually ushered in free meals all-day for everyone; saving parents the bother of feeding their kids, increasing dependency on the school district and, most recently, being able to tout that they were providing meals for kids during Covid shutdown, when the ONE thing they did was to hand out meals and food curbside in front of the district schools. (!!!) It’s a racket. And oh, there’s more where that came from, which I won’t bore you with now. Maybe later, when this subject comes up again. Which it will. 🙂
It’s an upside down world. Instead, they should bring back corporal punishment. I remember our principal had the paddle with holes in it to reduce wind resistance that might slow down the impact. One had a belt. Teachers had a ruler to smack your knuckles, or open palm. Corner stool with the dunce cap. We had all that. We respected our elders and especially our teachers. And when the note came home to tell parents of misbehavior, we got it all a second dose. My dad took us to the shed and took off his belt. Held by one hand, we danced around him as he belted our backside. My grandfather had an actual horse whip he’d use on us for disrespecting adults.
Governor Hair-gel just loves to point out how California is “ leading the way” in this or that. The only thing people see is that the only thing California is leading the way in is becoming “America’s Toilet.” This is just another step towards that goal. Certain parts of the state have already garnered the moniker of being “Haiti West”. I hope Gavin is proud of his accomplishments and that with each one he is ruining his chances for that higher office that he covets so much, unless the fix is in.
Bring back corporal punishment. If the kids still wishes to be disrespectful and disruptive send him or her on a tour of one of the hundreds of homeless camps littered throughout Gavin’s Golden State to let them see one possible future. If that doesn’t work teach them the phrase, “ Would you like fries with that?”
Welcome to the jungle, it gets worse here everyday
You learn to live like an animal in the jungle where we play.
I wonder if kids refusing to wear masks or that wear patriot t-shirts will get the same treatment as animals that beat up teachers and trash classrooms? Somehow I doubt it.
Skinner and Newsom never stood in front of a classroom with disruptive students. As a retired public high school teacher, I know how this will impact learning. Learning? What learning? The school where I taught already refused to suspend/expel students because “it made the school look bad.” Now incompetent administrators have the backing of government. The animals are running the zoo. Bring back the swat paddle and McGuffey’s Readers.
Yet one more reason to NEVER put your kids in public schools in this state. It’s a total race to the bottom.
With the inability to expel disruptive kids from CA public schools, such schools will need “rubber rooms” for the disrupters. And they need to be unpleasant rooms — not the “Breakfast Club” hangout that the movie depicts.
Here’s some possible features of such rooms:
* Loud annoying opera constantly playing.
* Phones confiscated, of course — and not returned at the end of the day. Parents have to come to school to retrieve the phones — complete with a discussion about their kid.
* Nutritious but unwanted food. Only beverage is water.
* Only textbooks allowed. No paper and pencils.
* Cameras recording EVERYTHING going on in the room.
TWO benefits:
1. The disruptors are out of the “teaching” classes, so the other students benefit.
2. The unpleasant aspects of the rubber rooms will encourage students to NOT disrupt classes.
The “teacher shortage” is largely a fiction — except in STEM fields. With our plummeting public school attendance, districts are LAYING OFF teachers.
But to the extent there’s a problem hiring and KEEPING teachers, it’s NOT a pay problem. CA teachers in CA average over $90K a year for 8 months work — 2nd highest in the nation. And the benefits are terrific — especially the pensions.
The problem keeping teachers is their WORK CONDITIONS. The inability of politicians and school administrators to deal with violent and disruptive students today is driving away more and more people who are ALREADY teaching, and many more considering the profession.
It isn’t that his kids go to private school that is the issue. I attended Catholic school – best gift my parents ever gave me. For my family, daughter is a teacher, it is all about creating an environment that is conducive to learning where children and staff feel safe. Until public schools get back to their core mission off educating children rather than being social policy petri dishes, they are a hole in the ground we will continue to pour money into expecting results but getting none. That being said, what is the issue with Gov. Unelectable to Higher Office is his ‘do as I say, not -as I do’ policies i.e. “Everyone must get the COVID vaccine…except my kids of course”. He’s a hypocrite and his counter intuitive edicts are only going to get worse as the day he is termed out approaches like an oncoming freight train. Now that is a day I think should be added to the State Calendar as a Holiday! We can call it California Cuckquean Day in honor of former First Partner whatever her name was.
Kids are expelled to protect teachers and staff as well as not to be role models for wanna be trouble makers filling to vacuum.
Maybe each student should be in locked glass containers, 35 to a class.
What teacher wants to put up with this?