Rethinking Georgia’s Approach To School Discipline

During a busy day at the state Capitol, Sen. Emanuel Jones, D-Decatur, retreats to his office for a few minutes between meetings. A red folder sits on a table. Inside are several drafted bills related to school discipline reform.

“This is a piece that deals with kids that are less than 10 years old and not [allowing schools] to suspend those kids,” Jones says as he flips through the pages.

Jones thumbs through at least six more bills. You could say school discipline is his pet project. He formed a committee last year to study Georgia’s process. The findings surprised him.

“What I didn’t know is that kids are at such a disadvantage in the hearing process,” he says.

The “hearing process” he refers to are school discipline hearings. They’re mandated by law in Georgia’s 216 school districts. Students get a hearing when their punishment is more than a 10-day suspension.

“Typically, an event has happened at school, and a child has been alleged to have committed an offense in violation of the school’s code of conduct,” Michael Tafelski, an attorney with the Georgia Legal Services Program, says.

He represents students in school discipline cases. 

“Typically, they’re minor, nonviolent infractions in cases that I represent,” he says. “Sometimes you do have students that are involved in fights. In some rare occasions, there may be drug offenses.”

By law, either a hearing officer or a tribunal, appointed by the local school board, decides the outcome. Tafelski says that’s not fair.

“The assistant principal or principal essentially serves as the lead witness and also, if you use the legal term, the prosecutor in the case, and they present evidence against the student,” Tafelski says. 

That’s why students are usually found “guilty” he says. For example, hearings didn’t end well for 95 percent of students in Henry County last year. Most of them were suspended for at least a semester.

Sen. Emanuel Jones says kids don’t have a chance.

“The kids sign these letters, admitting to, ‘Yeah, OK I did this,’” Jones says. “But then they get to the hearing process and get booted out of school.”

The majority of those in Georgia are African-American. State data show they get 66 percent of suspensions, but make up 37 percent of the student population.

That drives Sen. Jones, who is African-American.

“It paints a really bad picture of what kids of color are experiencing here at schools,” he says. “But one thing I know, if we change the law, it’s going to impact every kid in Georgia, not just kids of color, but every child.”

That stack of bills on his table contains legislation that would: assign independent monitors at school hearings; make it easier to transition from alternative school to regular school; shorten suspension times; and see fewer kids referred to the Juvenile Justice System.

Jones is trying to secure a meeting with Gov. Nathan Deal next week to earn his support.

Editor’s Note: This is the first of a series of three stories on school discipline in Georgia.