A new law ending school suspensions for students in kindergarten through third grade comes after years-long advocacy efforts by the Legal Services Advocacy Project (LSAP), the legal aid community, and partners in the Solutions Not Suspensions Coalition, including Ed Allies. Grassroots advocacy by parents, youth, teachers, and community leaders led the effort.

What LSAP, legal aid, and community advocates know is that students who present with behaviors at school that are seen as necessitating punishment or dismissal are almost always students expressing their unmet needs. These young students are demonstrating undeveloped coping skills for the stress, frustration, or anxiety they're feeling at school. Add to that the devastating racial disparities in Minnesota's discipline data about who is suspended and who is supported. Signed into law in May, the new legislation will make it more difficult for Minnesota teachers and schools to suspend young children from the classroom as punishment and will regulate how and when recess detention is used. Schools will also be required to develop a process for parents to lodge official complaints about disciplinary actions.

“Legal Aid has long advocated that punishment, suspension, and isolation are the wrong tools to use against students who need added support. We know that a thoughtful response from a caring, trusted adult in the building can be far more effective than a disciplinary suspension,” explained LSAP staff attorney Jessica Webster. “Legal Aid wants every school to be a place where students can build skills to deal with stress and overwhelm — not a place that will punish and isolate the students who haven't quite mastered those skills.” Read more in New laws seek to make detentions, suspensions rarer in Minnesota elementary schools (startribune.com).