The Virginia Senate overwhelmingly took action Tuesday to cut the school-to-prison pipeline in elementary school.
The body passed Senate Bill 170 from Sen. Bill Stanley, R-Franklin County, with a 34-6 vote. The bill would prohibit students in preschool through the third grade from being suspended or expelled, except for drug and firearm offenses.
The House of Delegates version of the bill died in the chamber’s Education Committee last week.
“What we’re trying to stop is the schoolhouse to courthouse pipeline,” Stanley said before the vote.
He added later: “We need to make sure that we’re correcting their behavior and not punishing them.”
In 2015-16, Virginia schools issued more than 17,300 short-term suspensions and at least 93 long-term suspensions to students in pre-K through third grade, according to an October report from the Legal Aid Justice Center, a Virginia-based organization.
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A short-term suspension is classified as a suspension of up to 10 days, while a long-term suspension consists of banning students from school for 11 school days to 364 calendar days.
In its report, the center recommended that the General Assembly eliminate all out-of-school suspensions and expulsions for the young students.
With Tuesday’s vote, it’s one step closer.
“Let’s give our kids a chance,” said Sen. Lionell Spruill, D-Chesapeake.
Several senators spoke in opposition to the bill, including Sen. Dick Black, R-Loudoun.
“I would much rather trust them,” Black said of teachers and administrators.
With its passage, the bill heads to the House.
School lunches
The House unanimously approved a bill to stop “lunch shaming.”
The chamber passed House Bill 50 from Del. Patrick Hope, D-Arlington, as part of its uncontested calendar Tuesday. The bill would require each Virginia school board to adopt policies that prohibit school employees from publicly identifying or shaming a student in the division who cannot pay for a school meal or who has meal debt.
Also included in the bill is the requirement that the policies prohibit employees from making students do chores to pay for their meal debt.
Student loans
The House also approved part of Gov. Ralph Northam’s higher education agenda.
House Bill 1138 from Del. Marcia Price, D-Newport News, would create the Office of the Qualified Education Loan Ombudsman in an effort to help student loan borrowers. The bill passed the full House in a 94-5 vote Tuesday. The Senate version was approved unanimously Monday.
The office’s job, according to the bill, would include helping student loan borrowers “understand their rights and responsibilities” and helping with complaints from those borrowers.