Classroom. Credit: Pixabay.
A bill that would require Ohio school districts to make a policy to expel a student that poses an “imminent and severe endangerment” for 180 days and potentially longer has been passed by the state legislature and is going to Gov. Mike DeWine’s desk.
The Ohio Senate passed House Bill 206 with a 23-7 vote and the Ohio House voted 61-25 to concur with changes made to the bill. Once DeWine receives the bill, he has 10 days to sign it into law or veto it.
State Reps. Gary Click, R-Vickery, and Monica Robb Blasdel, R-Columbiana, introduced H.B. 206.
The bill defines “imminent and severe endangerment” as bringing a firearm or a knife “capable of causing serious bodily injury” to school, making a bomb threat to a school building, causing serious physical harm to someone at school or making an “articulated or verbalized threat, including a hit list, threatening manifesto, or social media post, that would lead a reasonable person to conclude that the pupil poses a serious threat,” according to the bill’s language.
“The goal is not to deprive the child of their education rather than stop unintentionally readmitting every student who may still pose an imminent threat to a school full of other students and faculty,” said State Sen. Andrew Brenner, R-Delaware.
State Sen. Louis W. Blessing, III, R-Colerain Township, was the only Senate Republican to vote against the bill. Three Democrat state representatives voted for the bill — Sean Brennan, Richard Dell’Aquila and Adam Miller.
State Sen. Catherine D. Ingram, D-Cincinnati, said she supports school safety, but has concerns with the bill.
“Unfortunately, if a child goes across the room, takes somebody’s cell phone, slams it down, that actually could be justifiable for expulsion,” she said.
The bill would allow a district school board to create a policy that would authorize the superintendent to create conditions for an expelled student to meet before being reinstated — including an assessment by a psychiatrist, licensed psychologist, or licensed school psychologist to evaluate if the student poses a danger. The expelled student can then be reinstated if the superintendent says the student has “shown sufficient rehabilitation,” according to the bill.
A student’s expulsion can be extended 90 days at a time and there is no cap on how many times a student’s expulsion can be extended. An average school year is about 180 days and the bill would require the superintendent to have a list of alternative education options for the expelled student.
An amendment to the bill requires public schools to report demographic data on expelled students to the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce.
Earlier this year, the Children’s Defense Fund Ohio released a report that discovered Black male students were 4.3 times more likely to be suspended or expelled than their white peers.
The report showed Black students represented 39.7 per 100 students with “discipline occurrences.” Disabled students who were suspended or expelled accounted for 22.2 per 100 students and students considered economically disadvantaged had 21.5 discipline occurrences per 100 students.
A handful of amendments were added to H.B. 206 in the Senate Education Committee including one that would modify the state’s school closure law. Currently, Ohio charter schools are automatically closed if they have three straight years of poor performance.
Under the bill, charter schools facing closure would have an additional two years to improve if they receive a performance index measure score on its state report card within five points below the score required to receive two stars on its achievement rating.
“As long as they are maintaining them and trying to do everything to improve, we’re going to keep them off the closure list so that the state doesn’t take them over,” Brenner said. “But they have to improve each year, and that’s going to essentially be a quasi rolling average for the next two years. If at any time they fall below that, they’re automatically closed for the next year.”
The Ohio Department of Education and Workforce requested an amendment that would increase the appropriation authority for school choice program administration in fiscal year 2025 from $4 million to up to $8.14 million.
“The department is requesting to move some money around to cover the cost of the school choice administration due to the fact that they’ve been fighting some lawsuits, and it’s costing them a lot of money to fight the existing school choice lawsuits,” Brenner said.
Vouchers Hurt Ohio filed a lawsuit in 2022 against the EdChoice private school voucher program, saying the program has disproportionately grown while resources for public school districts have diminished. About 200 Ohio school districts have joined the lawsuit, which will go to trial next year.
Follow OCJ Reporter Megan Henry on Bluesky.
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