By Alison May

Last month NCSL’s Early Care and Education project hosted an extremely well-attended webinar about reducing the number of expulsions and suspensions in early childhood learning settings.  

The webinar, now archived, highlighted data showing expulsions and suspensions in early childhood settings are about three to 34 times greater than in K-12! Read that data point again, because it’s shocking.

Presenter Phil Strain, a professor of educational psychology and early childhood director of the Positive Early Learning Experience Center at the University of Colorado Denver, laid out the research of early childhood expulsions and suspensions. He noted that expulsion and suspension are seen as disproportionally affecting minority children. Strain argued that the removal of a child for challenging behaviors could potentially exacerbate the challenging behaviors, because the behaviors are the possible product of a skills deficit. He highlighted Colorado’s work to reduce expulsion for publicly funded child care, utilizing a cross-sector state team and early childhood mental health consultants. He also highlighted critical components needed to support teachers and families. 

After Strain laid out key points about the use of evidence-based practices and research, webinar attendees had an opportunity to hear from Washington, D.C., Councilmember Charles Allen. Allen spent time highlighting the accomplishments of D.C. B21-0001: Pre-K Student Discipline Amendment Act of 2015 that prohibits the suspension or expulsion of a student of prekindergarten age from any publicly funded prekindergarten program except in certain circumstances. He also mentioned that the new law limits the length of suspension not allowing them to exceed three days for any individual incident.

Allen continued by offering some legislative solutions for his colleagues on the webinar to consider. Potential solutions such as offering support and technical assistance to schools with high suspension rates so that they may have additional staff to assist in facilitating the discipline and de-escalation techniques.

One key quote that Allen mentioned, that likely resonates with policymakers and other citizens, comes from Walter Gilliam, the director of the Edward Zigler Center in Child Development and Social Policy at the Yale University Child Study Center, who has researched preschool student discipline:

“If you have a preschool program and you expel the children who need it the most, you're sabotaging your rate of return. No child is more in need of school-readiness-boosting preschool experience than a child who is being expelled or suspended from preschool. … We would never send a child home because that child was struggling at reading. We would never send a child home if that child was struggling with math. Why would we send a child home for struggling with social-emotional skills?”

In addition to the policy work in D.C., both Maine (surveying early childhood teachers) and Connecticut have looked at supporting social and emotional needs and reducing early childhood expulsions in their own states.

Be sure to check out the full archived webinar and PowerPoint Presentation today.

Alison May is a staff coordinator in NCSL’s Children and Families program.

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