Every school year, hundreds of thousands of suspensions are issued for vague, subjective reasons, such as disobedience, insubordination and disorderly conduct. Often, the infractions are minor, but students lose valuable time in school. A multipart Hechinger Report investigation uncovers how common this punishment is and how it hurts Black students and students with disabilities the most.
Vague school rules at the root of millions of student suspensions
Students miss hundreds of thousands of days of school each year for subjective infractions like defiance and disorderly conduct
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PROOF POINTS: Four things a mountain of school discipline records taught us
Thousands of students are suspended for vague, subjective reasons, such as defiance and disorderly conduct
What happens when suspensions get suspended?
The Los Angeles school district’s decade-old ban on suspensions for ‘willful defiance’ has benefited students — but also required a major investment in less punitive discipline methods
Students with disabilities often snared by subjective discipline rules
Experts say The Hechinger Report’s findings are a sign that federal legal protections are falling short
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Young children misbehave. Some are suspended for acting their age
Students in the early grades face a steep learning curve for figuring out how to function in a school environment
‘It was the most unfair thing’: Disobedience, discipline and racial disparity
In Ohio, Black students are more often suspended for low-level infractions than their peers
Hechinger’s school discipline project: How we did it
The details behind the millions of suspensions we analyzed