Educate Every Child: Promoting Positive Solutions to School Discipline in Virginia

Too many students in Virginia’s public schools are suspended or expelled due to harsh disciplinary policies, according to this report. Based on an analysis of Virginia’s Safe School Information Resource, the report concludes that excluding students from school does not improve behaviour and comes at a grave cost to society including high dropout, crime and teacher attrition rates.

The report recommends that Virginia improve school climate and students’ futures by adopting more effective approaches to managing challenging behaviour, including expanding Virginia’s successful Effective Schoolwide Discipline (ESD) programme. ESD is a framework that emphasises teaching and rewarding positive behaviour on a schoolwide, classroom and individual basis. 

JustChildren Program of the Legal Aid Justice Center received a regrant from the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which works with Atlantic’s Children & Youth programme in the United States to reform harsh disciplinary polices in schools.