Texas senators look into allowing 'abusive' students to face criminal charges
AUSTIN (KXAN)— A series of bills discussed by Texas senators on Tuesday would make it easier for disruptive students to be removed from the classroom, expelled to juvenile detention centers for alternative school or even charged with misdemeanors.
But what's considered disruptive would be at the discretion of teachers and districts and would put more protections in place for educators.
It comes as assaults on teachers and school related threats have risen in recent years. According to data from the Texas Education Agency (TEA), school districts collectively reported 2,654 district employees being assaulted by a student in the 2023-2024 school year -- an 18% increase from the year before.
Lubbock Sen. Charles Perry presented a series of student discipline bills he authored during the Senate Education Committee K-12 hearing on Tuesday:
- Senate Bill 1871: Relates to discipline management, including the offense of exhibiting, using, or threatening to exhibit or use a firearm or weapon in or on school property or on a school bus and access to telehealth mental health services in public schools.
- Senate Bill 1872: Relates to the expulsion of a public school student for engaging in conduct that constitutes certain offenses.
- Senate Bill 1873: Relates to students enrolled in public schools subject to in-school or out-of-school suspension.
- Senate Bill 1874: Relating to immunity from certain disciplinary proceedings against a professional employee of a school district for certain actions concerning public school discipline and law and order.
Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, brought forth a related legislation, Senate Bill 1924. That bill would return the state to the pre-2013 status quo when students could receive Class C misdemeanors for school offenses. It requires criminal referral for harm or imminent harm to a teacher.
In a tense back and forth, Dallas Sen. Royce West questioned Creighton on proposing new legislation with an old state policy.
"Let's make certain we don't make the mistakes of the past…Surely, as the chair of public education, that is not what you want," West said. "There were instances where kids were being arrested in front of their classmates.”
Creighton backed his bill.
"Mistakes the legislature has made in the past, making these changes that have put our teachers in serious risk and in harms way,'' Creighton said.
District superintendents testified during the hearing, asking for consideration to give more control on a local level.
"Local ISDs need to have flexibility to make disciplinary decisions," Grandview Independent School District Superintendent Kirby Basham said.
Some argued the bills talked about on Tuesday go too far.
"It removes those proportionality requirements, the severity requirements, so that a teacher can just remove the kids for just being disruptive," Crystal Tran, Legal Fellow on the education justice team with with Texas Appleseed said. "What does that mean? We don't know.”
West also raised concerns about fairness when it comes to students being removed from class due to disciplinary issues.
"How do we have as much equal application as possible around the state in utilizing these terms and definitions?" West asked. "[We could] have some parents complaining that the teacher wrongfully put the child out of the classroom. What's that parent's recourse in that situation?"
Research from the National Library of Medicine shows there are racial disparities when it comes to school discipline.
"The discipline gap is the disproportionate and differential use of exclusionary action against Black and other racially marginalized children in schools (Gregory et al., 2010; Thomas & Stevenson, 2009). A U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights (2014) study of national school discipline data shows that Black students are significantly more likely to be suspended or expelled than White students, based on their representation in the school population (U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights, 2014).
National Library of Medicine