Is Suspension Really a 'Vacation' for the Student?

I've heard a lot of people say we shouldn't suspend students because it's just going to be a vacation for them.

It's just going to be rewarding or reinforcing for them to be able to sleep in, stay home, play video games, whatever they want to do.

And of course, we have to think about what's rewarding and reinforcing in some contexts.

But when a student does something major, when a student is violent towards someone else or creates a serious disruption to the learning environment to the point that they need to be suspended, we can't worry too much.

We can't psych ourselves out about how they're going to feel about it or what they're going to do.

when they're at home.

And of course, students will sometimes try to use reverse psychology on us.

They'll say, go ahead, suspend me.

I don't care.

And they do care.

We can't be fooled by things like that.

And we can't worry too much about what the student is going to do when they're home because the major concern needs to be everybody else's safety and learning at school.

And sometimes people will go both directions with this.

They'll say, oh, it's a vacation.

Or they'll say, oh, I don't want this student to have to spend more time at home where their home is kind of unsafe.

It's just not a good environment.

Well, you know, honestly, I think we're talking out of both sides of our mouth on that issue.

And also, if you truly believe that a student's home environment is unsafe, remember, they're there all the time, right?

Students do not disappear when school is out.

You know, like little kids think their teacher lives at school, so they're like surprised to see you at the grocery store.

We have to be careful not to make that same mistake when it comes to our students and think they only exist when they're at school.

And if we're sending them home, we're sending them into a harm that they're not otherwise going to encounter.

No, they're home 84% of the time anyway.

They're out of school almost all of the time.

So this idea that by suspending kids for a couple of days, we're dramatically increasing their risk of harm from being home.

Like, no, if that's the case, you need to call CPS anyway, regardless of whether the you know, the student is in trouble at school.

We're mandatory reporters.

And if a student's home environment is truly unsafe, that's a reporting situation.

But I think what's really happening is we just feel guilty about suspension.

We feel bad about it.

It feels icky.

It feels awkward.

Like we're here to serve students.

We're here to teach them and saying, you don't get to be here.

Kind of hurts, like we feel bad about that.

But I have to say, I feel worse about students getting hurt at school.

I feel worse about teachers getting assaulted because students are acting with impunity.

And for all of our concerns about reinforcing whatever the behavior was by sending the student home, giving them a vacation.

I think the things that are most reinforcing that we have to worry about are power and attention from bad behavior, right?

If you have control, complete control over other people through violence, if you're a student who is destroying your classroom, terrorizing other people, hurting other people, assaulting other people, bullying other people, you have an enormous amount of power.

And we have a responsibility as a school to interrupt that, to break that power, to send you home so that you no longer have that power over other people.

And what you do while you're home is your business.

If you want to play video games, I don't really care.

I want the school environment to be safe.

So that is my priority when it comes to suspension.

That doesn't mean we're always using suspension in the most effective way, but I think it is an essential tool.

Let me know what you think.