Lawmakers want to give schools more leeway to suspend Texas’ youngest and homeless students

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A proposal in the Texas House could make it a lot easier for schools to suspend the state’s homeless and youngest students.

House Bill 6 — which a majority of House Republicans signed as co-authors in a show of support — would expand school districts’ authority to discipline students for classroom disruptions. The House Public Education Committee heard testimony on the bill Tuesday.

A 2017 state law banned suspensions for pre-K through second grade unless students commit a serious offense like bringing a gun to school. In 2019, Texas enacted similar restrictions on disciplining homeless students, only allowing suspensions when they break rules related to violence, weapons, drugs or alcohol.

In what appears to be a major reversal, HB 6 aims to give teachers and their school districts more authority to respond to class disruptions. The proposal comes at a time when Texas schools are struggling to hire and retain teachers. Ineffective discipline support and poor working conditions were cited as top concerns among educators in a 2023 report from a task force Gov. Greg Abbott created to identify solutions for the state’s critical teacher shortages.

“This bill is about standing with our educators, ensuring that teachers in our classrooms have the support that they need and that they deserve to create a structured and focused learning environment,” Rep. Jeff Leach, the Plano Republican who authored the bill, said in Tuesday’s hearing.

Under HB 6, schools could issue out-of-school suspension to all students when they “engage in repeated and significant disruption of the classroom” or threaten “the immediate health and safety of other students.”

Texas schools use two types of suspensions: in-school suspensions, which require students to learn in a supervised environment outside of their regular classrooms, and out-of-school suspensions, which are used for major infractions and require students to stay off school grounds. As an alternative to suspension or expulsions, students can also be sent to a disciplinary alternative education program.

The bill would let schools provide virtual learning at these alternative schools and repeal a current law that requires schools to send students who vaped to an alternative education setting. The bill would also allow schools to issue in-school suspensions indefinitely.

Opponents of the legislation say the bill’s broad language could lead to an overreliance on discipline that will push students out of the classroom. They also fear virtual learning could lead the state’s most vulnerable students to become disengaged with their education — as it happened during the COVID-19 pandemic.

At the Tuesday committee hearing, Rep. Gina Hinojosa, D-Austin, questioned how the House could tighten the bill so students facing discipline are still supported.

“I want to make sure we’re not washing our hands of these kids,” she said. “I just want to make sure the language is tight enough so that we're not sending kindergarteners home to an empty apartment. We're not having kids indefinitely sitting in [in-school-suspension] in some room in the school building.”

An epidemic of violence in schools

School leaders across the state described Tuesday a rise in student violence, where incidents of disruptions have become increasingly persistent and dangerous since the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the first two months of this school year at Community ISD in Collin County, Tonya Knowlton, the district superintendent, reported more than 30 instances of staff injuries like bites and punches.

“We've replaced staff members’ glasses, we've sent principals home with black eyes, and we've sent staff members to the emergency room,” Knowlton said. “The other students, young children eager to learn, liking school — they're being forced to sit through continual classroom disruptions…bringing learning in that classroom to a complete halt.”

Educators like Knowlton said working conditions for teachers have become untenable. Teachers are leaving the profession because of the ways misconduct has affected classroom management, she said.

One assistant principal at Corsicana ISD, Candra Rogers, was blinded when she intervened in a fight and a student threw a hanger at her. The student had a history of disciplinary problems as early as kindergarten and might have benefited from discipline like suspensions early on, Rogers said.

“Our schools need the flexibility to be able to create a safer environment by immediately addressing the discipline of students like the student who robbed me of my eyesight,” Rogers said.

“Makes little sense”

Gina Zenor, an educator and a fellow with the Texas Educational Policy Institute, said the bill’s language is vague. For example, it does not define what is considered “repeated or significant disruptions,” she said.

“While maintaining classroom order is essential, this lack of clarity leads to inconsistent discipline practices,” Zenor said. “Undefined terms like repeated or significant disruptions create room for implicit bias.”

Black students already experience harsher disciplinary measures more often than their peers, which can lead to poor academic outcomes and affect their perception of school.

Creating a virtual option for disciplinary alternative education programs also might have unintended consequences on students who need behavioral help, opponents of the bill said.

Leach, the bill’s author, said virtual settings should be reserved for when in-person programs were at capacity.

“The creation of the virtual [disciplinary alternative education programs] makes little sense for kids who are already experiencing behavioral issues. Virtual settings during COVID proved to be difficult for a lot of kids,” said Sarah Reyes, a policy director at the Texas Center for Justice and Equity. “These kids that are being removed are kids that are most likely in … need of the most attention.”

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