News from Alliance for Quality Education.

Last year, New York students lost 686,000 days of instruction to suspension, often for minor misbehavior.

New York’s laws and policies on school discipline favor harsh, exclusionary punishments — punishments that unfairly target students of color, students with disabilities, and LGBTQI students. These punishments limit academic achievement, and push students out of the classroom and into the criminal justice system, feeding the school-to-prison pipeline.

One suspension makes a student twice as likely to drop out.

This year, New York's legislators have a chance to take action that will take a major step toward ending the school-to-prison pipeline in our state by passing the Safe and Supportive Schools Act. The Safe and Supportive Schools Act (S.0767-A.1981) ends the over reliance on suspensions that unfairly pushes out students of color, students with disabilities and students who openly identify as LGBTQI.

New York must take action to ensure every student has an equal opportunity to succeed. Email your legislators now and urge them to support New York's students in school, and pass the Safe and Supportive Schools Act.

The Safe and Supportive Schools Act:

• limits the use of suspensions for students in Kindergarten through 3rd grade to only the most serious behavior.
• requires school codes of conduct to include restorative approaches to discipline, to proactively build a school community based upon cooperation, communication, trust, and respect.
• shortens the maximum length of a long term suspension from 180 to 20 school days.

...and more. Click the image above to see everything the SSS Bill would do if exacted. Every student deserves a school environment where they are included, respected, and supported. Email your legislators now and ask them to support passage of the Safe and Supportive Schools Act.
In solidarity,
Jasmine Gripper
Alliance for Quality Education