SB0453 Summary

• State Board of Education must prepare annual student discipline reports by October 31, disaggregated by race, ethnicity, gender, age, grade level, English learner status, incident type, and duration, covering out-of-school suspensions, expulsions, and alternative placements in all public schools.

• State Board identifies top 20% of school districts in three metrics: suspension rate, expulsion rate, and racial disproportionality in discipline, excluding districts with fewer than 10 total suspensions/expulsions or fewer than 50 students in each racial group for the disproportionality metric.

• School districts identified in top 20% for 3 consecutive school years must submit a school discipline improvement plan to the State Board within 90 days of notification, approved at a public school board meeting and posted online, with annual progress reports required until they no longer meet the criteria.

• State Board authorized to award competitive grants under the Safe Schools and Healthy Learning Environments Program to school districts that reallocate funding from school-based law enforcement to alternatives including restorative justice, mental health services, drug treatment, and staff training on conflict resolution and discipline alternatives.

• Grants awarded based on: arrest rates over prior 3 years (40% weight), ratio of law enforcement to students (20% weight), and strength of comprehensive approach to eliminate unnecessary arrests (40% weight); State Board must post annual program results report by October 31 beginning in 2018.