(Reuters) - Illinois school districts have been routinely referring students who misbehave to local police that fine them for municipal violations, a practice that flouts a law passed in 2015 meant to stem the flow of the student-to-prison pipeline.
Illinois lawmakers seven years ago enacted laws to curb overly punitive school discipline policies that have pushed disproportionate numbers of Black and other minority students out of school and into the criminal justice system, often for typical childhood misbehavior.
Among other measures, the 2015 school discipline reform bill, known as SB 100, made exclusionary discipline a last resort, which means that out-of-school suspensions and expulsions can only apply in cases where a child’s continued presence poses a safety threat or interferes with operation of the school.
Illinois' school discipline reform act was widely considered to be one of the most far-reaching efforts to address the national school-to-prison pipeline problem.
And, generally speaking, the state's school districts have indeed adopted a more a restorative approach, focused on repairing the harm caused by a student's misbehavior rather than pure punishment — for example, convincing a child who hits another to apologize, rather than automatic suspension, according to an NPR Illinois report in December 2017 .
But some of the reform measures have also been seriously undermined by local school administrators and officials themselves.
Educators in Illinois have...
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