Expulsion, of Students

Expulsion is the immediate removal of a student from school. An expulsion is a student who leaves school involuntarily due to a removal approved by appropriate school authorities. According to the U.S. Department of Education, expulsion is an action taken by school authorities, compelling a student to withdraw from school for reasons such as extreme behavior, chronic absenteeism and tardiness, incorrigibility, or unsatisfactory achievement or progress in school. Historically, expulsion and the removal of a student from school were defined as the denial of access to a public education for a period of time based on the seriousness of the offense. Expulsion was a disciplinary action reserved for the most serious offenses committed by students. Expulsions were often considered as nothing more than an unsupervised street furlough for delinquent students to commit crimes.

Suspension is associated with expulsion. Suspension is a mandated leave given to a student that prohibits the student from attending school. In-school suspension is defined as the temporary dismissal of a student from class by authorized school personnel in accordance with established district/school rules and regulations. The student is served with in-school supervision. An out-of-school suspension is the temporary dismissal of a student from class. The student is removed by authorized personnel using district/school rules and regulations. The out-of-school suspension is served outside of school. Long-term suspension refers to removal of special education students.

In the age of zero tolerance, the Gun-Free Schools Act of 1994 (GFSA) requires states to enact zero tolerance legislation that mandates automatic expulsion for a period of one year. The Safe Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act has also affected student expulsion. Expulsion is no longer a student disciplinary action that is defined by public school administrators and teachers but a nationally defined criminal behavior. In an effort to comply with federal policy that comes with the teeth to withhold federal education dollars, states have created school discipline policies that assign criminal categories to offenses that mandate expulsion. According to the Harvard Civil Rights Project, in 26 states, districts are required to provide some kind of disciplinary alternative education program (DAEP) as an alternative educational placement for students who are removed from their home schools for offenses that mandate expulsion; however, disciplinary alternative education programs are minimal services that may not provide courses that the student needs for graduation. DAEPs may pose a disruption to the regular classroom instruction and the student's education.

Expulsions may be categorized as discretionary or mandatory removal; however, in most cases students are not removed to the street. In the case of discretionary expulsions, students are removed from the home campus and admitted into a DAEP based on the discretion of the school administrator. Using GSFA guidelines, mandatory expulsion is required if the student possesses a firearm, an illegal knife, a club, or a weapon as defined in the state's penal code. Other categories of mandatory expulsion infractions for which a student will be removed are actions committed when the student engages in aggravated assault, arson, murder, indecency with a child, aggravated kidnapping, or conduct punishable as a felony.

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