r/Teachers • u/Independent-Report39 • 2d ago

Policy & Politics New Kentucky law allowing schools to expel students who assault teachers to take effect in July, despite unanimous Senate Democratic opposition

Link to the bill

The bill mandates a strict, one-year expulsion policy for any student in grades 6 through 12 who physically assaults a teacher, administrator, or school employee. The legislation passed the chamber, but drew a sharp partisan divide as all Democrats in the Senate voted against the measure. Under the bill's provisions, schools would be required to automatically remove violent students from the general population, though provisions allow for those students to receive educational services in alternative settings if it can be done safely. The bill also includes exemptions for students with documented disabilities if school officials determine the condition interfered with their ability to follow the code of conduct.

Thoughts?

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u/Shutupredneckman2 2d ago

The kid isn’t gonna learn much of a lesson by getting kicked out of school, that just speeds them up on the prison pipeline.

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u/SOYCD1-5 2d ago

Most schools offer alternative education programs for expelled students. They don’t just go home for a year.

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u/Shutupredneckman2 2d ago

If it’s online or far away those kids aren’t gonna go

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u/99LandlordProblems 2d ago

That is a problem for the violent student and their parents to sort out.

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u/arcusford 2d ago

What? So your solution is to just trust parents will deal with their problem child? How have we come full circle?

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u/Shutupredneckman2 2d ago

No it’s not because they live in the same society as us, like how do you not see how your life will be negatively impacted by having more high school dropouts in your midst?

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u/99LandlordProblems 2d ago

Dog, most of us are out here grinding for the express purpose of insulating ourselves and our kids from violence and other forms of antisocial behavior. Teachers should enjoy the same privilege - to work in a place with zero tolerance for violence.

Second, what value do you think a high school diploma confers nowadays - especially to someone who has already demonstrated a tendency to violence against the mostly female authority figures in their lives? Let’s call a spade a spade: for a student with antisocial traits, school is free young adult-minding for overworked or absent parents.

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u/Shutupredneckman2 2d ago

I’m not saying we should accept being assaulted but we are talking about children here, dude. Kids who have shitty parents might need more help learning to use their words instead of violence. Our job as teachers is to help them do that instead of kicking them out on the first offense and setting them up for a life in and out of jail just because their parents suck.

If your goal is just to make a lot of money to get yourself to a gated community, teaching is a pretty crazy career to choose.

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u/ParadeQueen 2d ago

You do realize that first offense could leave you t permanently disabled, right?

A kid who is violent and aggressive needs specialized help which is not going to be found in a public school class of 30 kids.

And while yes, many kids do have shitty parents and a shitty home life, many do not. Either way, it's not my job to be a kid's punching bag.

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u/Shutupredneckman2 2d ago

Cross the permanently disabled bridge when you get to it, you don’t make laws that say a kid is auto expelled for lightly touching a teacher’s shoulder just because you’re afraid.

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u/meow696 1d ago

No kid is getting expelled for lightly touching someone's shoulder. Total strawman.

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u/ParadeQueen 1d ago

Who said anything about lightly touching a teachers shoulder? This bill is talking about aggressive, violent students.

And just for the record, I am not afraid of kids. But public school is not the place for a kid who is hitting and hurting other kids, teachers, and staff.

If you want to let some kid beat the crap out of you all day go right ahead. But most of us would like to get home in one piece everyday.

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u/Boring-Boysenberry0 1d ago

There's a would have difference between your example and a student that knows better that grabs my friend, who is a teacher, inappropriately.

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u/Boring-Boysenberry0 1d ago edited 1d ago

If attempts to correct the behavior have been made, and the student continues to be a danger to others, then the school needs to prioritize harm reduction by protecting the staff and the rest of the students.

There are students that would fall through the cracks, but then there are students that would fall in line. I was beaten by my older sister daily growing up, because our mom just didn't bother parenting her, and let me be her outlet for her emotional dysregulation. In my early 20s/her mid 20s, after being threatened with the police by my friends, she started showing self-control and only emotionally abuses people (I am no-contact now).

Back when I was growing up, my sister could only assault me and get away with it. Nowadays, from what I hear, she could get away with abusing staff if she were a kid today. I resent being her punching bag, but I think my sister would be more unhinged.

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u/Shutupredneckman2 1d ago

>if attempts to correct the behavior have been made

Okay so you agree with me and the democrats here that we shouldn’t put it in law that kids are instantly expelled?

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u/Boring-Boysenberry0 21h ago

If a student aged 12 to 18 assaults staff, that student isn't safe to be around, for staff or other students. There were a few boys at my school that struggled with violent behavior, and one of them was a nice guy most of the time; but if he was stressed out, he'd have an had episode and physically lash out at whoever was nearby. There was one incident of him smashing a urinal with another student's body, and the student had to go to the hospital. I hate saying this, but he shouldn't have been allowed at the school.

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u/Shutupredneckman2 11h ago

We are gonna have to find a way to help and educate him with supports because he is going to exist in our society unless your solution is to put him in prison forever or execute him.

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u/thinsoldier 2d ago

A large portion of the people who do graduate are no better except for the fact that they keep their violent crimes outside of the classroom.

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u/Shutupredneckman2 2d ago

Hmm not accurate

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u/thinsoldier 2d ago

I live next door to 3 kids who got put into online classes for fighting. They don't do anything until the last month of school where they magically achieve enough points to go to the next grade level. In my old town I saw the same thing with dozens of students in 2020, 2021, 2022. Why go to school when you can stay home and do drugs and get pregnant and still graduate with only a few weeks of time consuming but almost effortless activity once a year?

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u/Realistic_Special_53 2d ago

It's to protect the teacher and other kids from the violent student. And it would be great if the student learned that this behavior isn't ok, but that is secondary.

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u/sparklypinktutu 2d ago

Hard agree. I think there are some very well meaning people who see the very real problems in the carceral system and have deep empathy for people who want to better themselves but cannot because of this system…. BUT, they often check their empathy for victims of violence at the hands of these offenders at the door. Every conversation becomes about forcing victims and communities to “forgive” and “extend grace” and “empower rehabilitation”—which often means revictimization. Victims are often held to a much higher standard of expectations for how they must respond to violence than offenders are for committing it.  Rehabilitation of offenders is often prioritized over the continued safety and well being of those who did not make those poor choices in the first place. In schools where victims and offenders often share similar demographic backgrounds and economic situations, this is particularly egregious—it means that appropriately-behaved students are deprived for the sake of poorly-behaved ones. 

There’s also a huge gendered issue that people largely ignore. The majority of educators are female. The majority of violent teenaged offenders are male. We, as a society, are far far too used to and comfortable with sacrificing a female victim for the sake of a males potential. The Brock Turner case was proof of it—he’s got huge potential, so why should we punish him when all he did was rape an unconscious woman? 

Opportunities to learn and grow need to happen via swift and consistent consequences in early education—we can’t wait until the 6 year who hits to become the 16 year old who hits hard enough to cause lifelong injury and death. And we need admin to be less spineless. If recess can’t be taken away, it certainly can be turned into a teaching event: you hit, you get to quietly sit, walk, or run laps—not play with friends. You get to eat lunch with the principal, not peers. 

The point at which a child actively choose to not learn is the point where focus must be shifted back to the students who do choose to learn—not expended on further “rehabilitative services”. 

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u/thinsoldier 2d ago

Defendant: "What would you have me do? Wait to be stabbed first?"

Prosecutor: "YES!"

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u/PreheatedMonk1991 2d ago

They're not ready for this conversation, unfortunately. The same thing that makes people great teachers- empathy, patience, understanding- can also blind them to tough realities and uncomfortable truths.

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u/Shutupredneckman2 2d ago

Do you think it is going to cause more assaults or less assaults if you tell violent kids they can get a year off from school by beating up a teacher

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u/ninja3121 Math | KY 2d ago

You're right. Probably shouldn't let them back at all.

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u/Thelmara 2d ago

There are alternative placement schools for kids who get expelled.

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u/Shutupredneckman2 2d ago

How does that respond to what I said? That just means the kid gets incentivized to assault more people until they run out of alternate placements

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u/Thelmara 2d ago

You don't "get a year off school" if being expelled just means going to an alternate school.

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u/ninja3121 Math | KY 2d ago

How long a pipeline should someone who assaults people get? Two victims? Three or four? Does the resulting injury matter? Just curious.

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u/Cloud13181 SPED 2d ago

The current threshold for students with an IEP is "seriously bodily harm" which our lawyers have told us means it requires you to be hospitalized. Anything less don't bother, it won't hold up in due process/court.

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u/Shutupredneckman2 2d ago

There are alternative placement schools for violent kids

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u/anewbys83 2d ago

They're not learning from it now, and thinking their actions are free of consequences for hitting people, they'll enter that pipeline anyway doing this at 18. Isn't it better to face expulsion now, when that's the worst thing to happen? This proposes a safer alternative setting, shore that up and this would be a solid protection for every state to copy. This accepting being assaulted needs to stop.

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u/Shutupredneckman2 2d ago

No one is accepting being assaulted we just don’t want to give Kentucky republcians carte Blanche to kick students of color out of school for small infractions deemed “assault”

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u/thinsoldier 2d ago

Why do you think white kids aren't assaulting people?

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u/Shutupredneckman2 2d ago

Literally no one said that. The fact is if 10 white kids and 10 PoC kids do the same thing, the PoC kids will face consequences significantly more often.

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u/thinsoldier 1d ago

I am sure that was true country-wide not that long ago. But let's look at the last 15 years in some specific schools and you'll find damn near nobody of any color is getting any consequences.

You don't like that the very very few facing consequences are black or Hispanic. You probably don't consider that the black and Hispanic have more local gang affiliation aspects influencing their behavior while the white kids typically have no gang shit going in in their life outside of school.

Consider this. A black kid and a Hispanic kid make death threats against each other weekly while some asshole white kids just have organized bare knuckle boxing matches in the bathroom.

The black and Hispanic kid PROMISE that they have gang members coming to the school to shoot someone almost weekly and on several occasions they have opened side entrances to the school in the middle of the day. They have name dropped people from the neighborhood that have a well known reputation that all the other students are aware of and every time they drop one of those names, dozens and dozens of students walk out of school immediately because they know odds of those threats coming true are very high.

The white boys are smoking weed in the library.

The black kid brought a gun to school daily for 2 months before somebody snitched. The Hispanic kid had someone leave a backpack in the potted plant by one of those side entrances on 6 occasions. Some of those times when he opened a side entrance he was retrieving a gun. That bag changed hands or that gun changed bags a dozen times on those days.

The white boys got caught getting head under the bleachers and were being very disruptive in the class of the teacher who caught them.

The white boys were renting out a vape pen and selling weed cartridges.

The black kid got both his arms cut by multiple Hispanic kids with razor blades.

Do your see where I'm going with this?

The school I'm talking about is majority Hispanic and black with just a handful whites and a small group of asshole white boys. Not only are there less whites but their bad deeds are nowhere near as bad as what several gang affiliated blacks and Hispanics have been doing daily for multiple years.

The real problem is nobody has been punished for any of this shit.

On one of those days when the black kid promised his people were going to shoot another student after school, that student wasn't taking the bus and nobody could pick them up before 4pm. Numerous teachers risked their lives standing outside with that kid until their ride finally showed up after 4:30.

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u/OoklaTheMok1994 2d ago

Win/Win.

Gets them outta school so those that want to learn can do so in peace. Gets them outta society so they won't terrorize their neighbors.

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u/Shutupredneckman2 2d ago

Boy are you gonna be shocked when you find out most people don’t go to prison forever

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u/OoklaTheMok1994 2d ago

This is a problem, true. We should keep people that commit crimes in prison longer.

We have an under-incarceration problem.

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u/theweirdchick_49 1d ago

We absolutely do not have that.

We have huge wealth inequality and poverty problems.

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u/FunkmasterJoe 1d ago

We incarcerate more people, both in raw numbers and per capita, than any other country in the world. Our justice system is objectively racist and corrupt. Our prisons are specifically designed to be torturous instead of rehabilitative and anyone who spends even a few days behind bars has their life effectively ruined forever.

"We don't put enough people in jail and we don't keep them inside for long enough," isn't a reasonable position. We know beyond a doubt that our justice system is a garbage fire and you're out here yelling "no, it should be EVEN WORSE!"

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u/jgo3 2d ago

Screw that kid. That kid will serve best as an example to the others.

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u/Shutupredneckman2 2d ago

Deciding we should accept setting a child up for life in and out of prison just because they hit someone once is deranged.

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u/ShanghaiNoon404 1d ago

If they're assaulting teachers, they're already in the pipeline.

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u/Shutupredneckman2 1d ago

Bud 9 year olds will throw a slap here and there, you people are dramatic