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Shannon Corregan: Suspending students a poor solution

This summer, the B.C. Confederation of Parent Advisory Councils passed a resolution to seek alternative solutions to suspensions in schools. It’s encouraging to see B.C.

This summer, the B.C. Confederation of Parent Advisory Councils passed a resolution to seek alternative solutions to suspensions in schools.

It’s encouraging to see B.C.’s PACs taking a progressive stance when it comes to the treatment of young people in our schools.

The resolution passed in response to mounting evidence (well, the evidence has been mounting for a while … is it mounted now?) that suspensions aren’t helping our kids, in fact they’re hurting them.

If the point of schools is to educate and socialize our children, and we punish rule-breaking by temporarily removing them from a system that rule-breakers almost by definition don’t want to be a part of … well, it just seems like a toothless threat, and counterproductive to boot.

The students most likely to be penalized through suspension are likely the ones who would benefit most from an inclusive school culture and a little extra support.

It seems as though the strategy of suspension is more of a frustrated “Well, what else can we do?” response than a solution.

Parents from the Sooke School District submitted the proposal, citing significant evidence that “research consistently shows that high rates of suspension are related to a number of negative outcomes for both suspended students and schools, including elevated rates of school dropout, poor school climate and low academic achievement.”

I think it’s great that the confederation has committed to ditching a policy that has been proven ineffective, but it raises the question of why it wasn’t done earlier. And yet, I think I can understand why not.

North Americans tend to have a different understanding about corrective procedures than, say, Nordic nations do. Just look at the differences in our prison systems. In America, the prison industrial complex is a money-making machine. Our neighbour to the south has the highest incarceration rate in the world. Canada is by no means comparable, but I think we do share many of the same cultural values that lead Americans to understand punishment (in this case, incarceration) as a reasonable response to rule-breaking.

(There’s also the fact that private prisons in the United States are lucrative and are fuelled by a desire for monetary gain, not social altruism, but let’s put a pin in that for now.)

The American prison system is notable for its extremely high recidivism rates and its poor rehabilitation rates. Nordic prisons, on the other hand, focus on re-education and rehabilitation rather than punishment: The focus of the entire enterprise is fundamentally different.

So, too, with this shift from suspension to support. We are beginning to understand that the best way to correct damaging behaviour is through education, not punishment. I think many of us assume implicitly that punishment is a good way — sometimes the only way — of affirming the consequences of poor behaviour, but that’s simply not the case. And that’s not to mention that it does a person no good understanding the consequences of their actions if they have no support structures to help them make better decisions in the future.

All in all, B.C.’s schools might be headed in a more compassionate, more productive direction, and that’s a good thing.

The corollary to this, however, is that these policies will need money and structural support to make them a reality. Educating students and listening to their problems is a lot more time-consuming and expensive than suspending them. But it’s also likely that these policies will be good for our children.

(I’m not sure why writing about young people from this angle makes me want to use the possessive. They’re not “my” kids. Perish the thought.)

So in a moment when we are advocating for healthier, more progressive policies for our children, it’s important to remember that investing in our province’s future (there’s that possessive again) costs money. And it should be money that we’re happy to pay, if it means that our young people have better, more effective policies supporting them at school.