The Hillsborough County School Board should agree Tuesday to accept the recommendations from district officials and a task force that would overhaul the district's discipline plan. The proposals address issues ranging from out-of-school suspensions to the reclassification of zero-tolerance offenses. The proposed changes strike a healthy balance between handing out appropriate discipline and addressing the root problems that often lead to misbehavior.
The recommendations are included in the district's new student handbook, which must be approved and produced before school starts next month. Among the most notable changes to the handbook is a reduction in the number of zero-tolerance offenses, which now will be the same as those defined by the state and still include violations such as possession of a firearm or weapon and making a threat or false report. The proposal also includes shorter suspension times for students. Under the new rules, a senior administrator must approve any suspension longer than five days. Supporters of that change have argued that the district relies too heavily on 10-day suspensions, which research has shown are largely ineffective and handicap returning students, whose grades typically drop precipitously because they are unable to make up missed work.
The proposed changes have been a long time coming, as the task force began its work more than two years ago. Many of the group's recommendations did not make it into the proposed handbook. Missing is a bill of rights that students would have signed before discipline proceedings to ensure that they were aware of their rights to due process. It is also unclear if suspended students will be able to make up missed work, which was another task force proposal. The new handbook says that making up work for unexcused absences is "subject to negotiations." But it also indicates that students with out-of-school suspensions will receive a grade of zero for missed tests and other graded work. Students who are suspended should not be doubly penalized by being prohibited from making up work. The district should revisit this issue.
The process has yielded some clear victories. Chief among them is a promising proposal raised at a board workshop last week in which Hillsborough public defender Julianne Holt offered to have lawyers from her staff work with students facing possible criminal charges to help them understand their rights before they are interviewed by law enforcement. Holt also proposed separate lawyer-led discussions with students about the criminal justice system, a promising diversion technique that could keep juveniles on the right side of the law.
Hillsborough County school superintendent Jeff Eakins has correctly described the proposed changes as a "heavy lift" for the district and the teachers and administrators who will implement them. But Eakins' willingness to embrace some of the proposed changes and to implement them districtwide indicates he understands the need to move quickly toward meaningful change and adopt new procedures before more students run afoul of the existing unwieldy discipline plan.
The proposed changes, though in some ways incremental, are moves in the right direction. They represent the kinds of proactive solutions that are exactly what the district needs to move its focus from disciplining students for bad behavior to awarding them diplomas.