West Virginia Watch, Spirit of Jefferson, Hampshire Review – Educators in West Virginia, like their peers across the country, are reporting challenges in fulfilling their mission due to increased student behavior issues.
Read the full op-ed.
In response to these growing concerns, lawmakers have considered highly punitive school discipline measures. Their concerns are valid — nearly 90 percent of public schools nationwide have reported negative impacts on students’ socioemotional development following the pandemic. At the same time, increased punitive and exclusionary discipline is not the appropriate response for either the short-term or lifetime well-being of children as young as five and six years old.
Student and child behavior is a highly complex issue that is influenced at multiple levels. Children come to school carrying a lot, particularly in West Virginia where more than 1 in 5 children have experienced at least two significant adverse experiences (including economic hardship, parent death, family violence or living with someone with a substance use disorder). A child’s physical, mental, and emotional health, their connections and interactions with peers, educators and school administrators, school district discipline practices, and state policies on school discipline all interact to produce student behavior. Lawmakers need to recognize the complexity of this issue when making policy decisions.
