Indiana schools suspended students for attendance violations more than 3,800 times in the 2022-23 school year, according to data from the Indiana Department of Education. There were about 140 expulsions for attendance.
(Jeswin Thomas / Unsplash)
Indiana students are suspended for thousands of days each year for attendance. In other words, schools punish students for missing class by forbidding them to come to school.
“It’s like rewarding a kid for bad behavior,” said Rep. Bob Behning (R-Indianapolis), chairman of the House Education Committee.
Now, a bill in the Indiana House would ban those suspensions.
Indiana schools suspended students for attendance violations more than 3,800 times in the 2022-23 school year, according to data from the Indiana Department of Education. There were about 140 expulsions for attendance.
House Bill 1201, which had an initial hearing on Wednesday, bars schools from suspending or expelling students for being chronically absent or habitually truant. Students are considered truant if theymiss 10 or more days of schoolwithout an excuse. They arechronically absentif they miss 10 percent of the school year or more regardless of whether it is excused.
The proposal faced some opposition during public comment. Cindy Long, with the Indiana Association of School Principals, said that suspension or expulsion may be appropriate in some circumstances.
“When a student deliberately and repeatedly violates attendance policies despite extensive interventions and support services, suspension could serve as a necessary measure,” said Long, who wasprincipal of Frankfort High Schooluntil this year.
If students miss so much school they won’t be able to earn credit, Long said letting them return to regular classes “disrupts the learning environment and creates challenges for both peers and teachers.”
Long also said that suspending students could be valuable because the students may no longer be eligible for events like prom or class trips, which could motivate some students to avoid suspension.
The bill also addresses attendance by requiring the Indiana Education Department to create a list of best practices for reducing absenteeism. It also directs the department to study how schools decide whether to categorize absences as excused or unexcused.
Behning also suggested that the committee would consider an upcoming amendment that would create an additional conference for students who are truant. The new conference, which was recommended by the Indiana School Boards Association, would be a pre-trial diversion meeting held by the local prosecutor’s office.
“That would be one more step before educational neglect charges are filed and we bring parents into a court to face those charges,” said ISBA executive director Terry Spradlin. “We want to bring all resources to bear. We think juvenile justice, the courts, prosecutors — other agencies have a role to play to help us address this issue.”
A separate section of the bill would require the Department of Education to study why schools report the reason for many suspensions as “other” rather than using detailed reasons such as fighting, drugs or defiance.
The Education Committee will vote on the bill before it heads to the full House.
