Addressing student behavior as a side effect of an under-resourced public school system

Educators in West Virginia, like their peers across the country, are reporting challenges in fulfilling their mission due to increased student behavior issues.

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.

Recent school discipline policies that have been considered or enacted in our state promoted stricter responses to student misbehavior and increased discretion for teachers in disciplinary decisions. In addition to being harmful to student well-being, research shows that these sorts of policies do not address student misbehavior or improve school safety. Instead, they increase the chances of negative long-term outcomes for all students and contribute to inequities across student groups.

In our state, this was illustrated following implementation of 2023’s House Bill 2890 which provided increased discretion to sixth through 12th grade teachers in their response to student behavioral issues and classroom disruptions.

Data from last school year suggests that minor behavioral incidents increased among students while serious and repeated incidents were not significantly impacted. Several student groups including Black students, students with disabilities, students experiencing homelessness, and students in foster care were disproportionately impacted by discipline decisions. Notably, students with disabilities, while only about one-fifth of the overall student population, accounted for more than double that amount for most disciplinary responses last year including in-school and out-of-school suspensions, alternative education placements, detentions, expulsions and law enforcement involvements.

Rather than excluding students from the classroom or transferring them to alternative education placements, we must improve the capacity of traditional public schools to serve students. Doing so is critical, considering that nearly 90 percent of students in our state are served through the public school system.

While not an immediate solution, building capacity for student support is an approach that can ultimately prevent behavioral issues among students and strengthen our public schools.

Step 1: Increase staffing of student support personnel to meet students’ physical, mental and emotional needs such as nurses, social workers, counselors and psychologists. Many of our school districts are understaffed for these roles while numerous students face challenges including food insecurity, economic strain, homelessness, substance use and poor mental health. In November, lawmakers learned that the statewide ratio of social workers to students is 1:16,000, with entire school districts that lack a single social worker and others that have their professional support staff serving far more than the recommended 1:250 ratio.

Step 2: Increase staffing and retention of teachers, including special education teachers. This step can benefit students and improve experiences and outcomes for educators by addressing staffing shortages and causes of job strain and burnout. Modernizing the school aid formula to ensure districts can hire the appropriate level of professional support staff is a step state lawmakers should take right away to increase support for students and educators alike.

Lawmakers have already demonstrated a willingness to utilize funding to address education in our state through the Hope Scholarship. Rather than further weakening public schools through this program, lawmakers can instead commit these funds to our public school system. For less than half of the estimated cost to make the Hope Scholarship universal, we could achieve sufficient coverage of essential professional support personnel across school districts.

Students and educators alike deserve the opportunity to learn in a safe and supportive environment. The concerns of educators must be addressed to ensure that students and educators can coexist in a public school system that recognizes their value and is committed to their wellbeing and success. By choosing to invest in our public schools, lawmakers can reaffirm their commitment to the students and educators in our state.