Sep
28
suspension
ByHow are you able to suspend a student from your class? In my school suspension is an administrators decision. I want to hear from teachers that have been able to do it without admin over ruling you and making you look weak.
Advise please.
thanks


Since I haven’t yet figured out how to post something….How does everyone treat the suspension with regards to the referral? Do you write a referral and call the parent every single day that a student is suspended if they don’t show up for detention for consecutive days? If a student doesn’t show up five days in a row, do you write 5 referrals? Has this caused problems for anyone?
It would help to have the actual laws available to print out and take to administrators on these issues.
I only work as a substitute, and have this problem, too. At most schools where I sub, I do not have the authority to even send a student to the office. My only “power” is to leave a note listing the students and the infractions comitted for the regular classroom teacher and administration to deal with at a later time. It is crazy! The kids do not look at me as an authority figure, because they realize that I really don’t have any true authority.
Yes–
Teachers have the authority in California to suspend a student from class, not from school, for defiance. My rules are set up so that either you will have a quiet, controlled classroom, or you will have defiance, so you are set up to win either way.
Those who see this as negative amaze me–as in, ‘You mean education should be about quiet, focused learning efforts and not chaos?! How strange!”
If, for some reason, you cannot do this at your school (it is not in an administrators power to refuse you as long as you are within the bounds of the ed. code), then there is the appeal to–no kidding–the Constitution. A student who is seriously interfering with others’ rights to learn must be removed.
Craig Seganti
Sometimes administrators will fudge on the distinction, so make sure you are, yes, referring to ‘removal from class’, not from school.
“Removal from class” may sound a bit more appropriate than “suspension”. State law (check your state, mine does) does grant teachers the “authority” to punish/remove defient students from class- not sit them out of school. Anyway, admin. does not like relinquishing their power, even at the expense of real education. I know, I’ve tried this method. It works. Period. However, I have modified my rules at the request of my “superiors”. So I say “10 min. detention with me, or 45 with admin. ” This has been working, so far.