By Ann Schimke, Chalkbeat
Last spring, after plans fizzled for legislation to address the suspension and expulsion of young children, a loose-knit group of early childhood advocates and state officials began meeting monthly. They wanted more input before trying again in the 2017 session.
Those meetings wrapped up on Wednesday and although no definitive answers emerged, they provided a peek at some of the policy changes that may end up in legislation or other state rules.
In broad strokes, the plans include collecting more detailed suspension and expulsion data from more early childhood programs, creating policies limiting the use of suspension and expulsion, and giving providers more training in how to handle challenging behavior like chronic biting, hitting and tantrums.
Multiple lawmakers have expressed interest in sponsoring a bill in 2017. Rep. Susan Lontine, a Denver Democrat, attended several stakeholder meetings and pledged her support from the start.
In addition, Representative-elect Dominique Jackson, an Aurora Democrat, as well as a staff member from the office of Rhonda Fields, another Aurora Democrat, attended Wednesday’s meeting and offered their help.
A coalition of groups have participated in the meetings, including Padres & Jovenes Unidos, the Colorado Children’s Campaign, the Denver chapter of the National Black Child Development Institute, and several early childhood councils and school districts.
Over the past couple years, there’s been a growing spotlight on early childhood suspension and expulsion — discipline tactics that disproportionately impact boys of color.
But while many advocates decry the use of such methods as both harmful to children and ineffective, there’s also the reality that many child care workers are not well-versed on alternatives, and don’t have the time or money to pursue extra training.
The draft of policy proposals presented on Wednesday acknowledged that in a way—with the longest list of recommendations falling under a category focused on giving child care providers more support.
Here’s a summary of the policy ideas presented Wednesday:
Better data
Currently, the government collects data from school districts showing the number of suspensions and expulsions they’ve handed out to students, including preschoolers. The data is broken out by race, gender, disability status and English-language learner status, but not based on which students get government subsidized meals, a proxy for poverty. No data is collected for the large percentage of young children who attend preschool or child care outside of public schools.
Policy proposals include:
- Expand the discipline reporting requirement to include preschool kids who are in taxpayer-funded care outside of public schools.
- Break out discipline data based on free-and-reduced-price meal status.
- Survey child care providers, particularly those who care for children 0 to 3, to gather discipline data from those not required to report their numbers to the government.
Clear policies
State child care rules already require that licensed providers establish policies stating how they’ll handle challenging behavior, when they’ll bring in mental health consultants and what steps they’ll take prior to a suspension or expulsion. Still, suspensions and expulsions aren’t prohibited and there are no rules about how long suspensions can last.
Policy proposals include:
- Prohibit out-of-school suspensions and expulsions for children under 8 with exceptions for ongoing safety concerns or as required by federal law.
- Limit the length of time for out-of-school suspensions for children in preschool through second grade and ensure plans for the transition back to school when suspensions occur.
- Embed restrictions on the use of suspensions and expulsions in the state’s mandatory five-level child care rating system, Colorado Shines.
Support for providers
The state and various nonprofit organizations already offer a number of options to help child care providers manage children with challenging behavior. These include training programs as well as coaching from early childhood mental health consultants.
Still, such services aren’t universally accessible and don’t address the overall lack of teacher preparation training on the topic or other problems, such as low pay for child care workers and the lack of access to social workers, counselors and other mental health specialists.
Policy proposals include:
- Put in place early detection and prevention programs for kids with challenging behavior.
- Ensure access to teacher preparation and on-the-job training that includes focus on cultural competence, social-emotional learning, restorative justice and early intervention when children show challenging behavior.
- Provide greater access to specialists such as social workers, counselors and mental health consultants.
- Diversify the early childhood workforce.
- Pay early childhood teachers more.
- Provide families with wraparound services from birth and invest in programs like home visiting.
Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.
