It's a belief repeated every day by teachers, principals and parents of rule-abiding children: Suspending disruptive students will allow the rest of the class to settle down and learn. But a new, large study calls this rationale into question.

The study is believed to be the first to look closely at the academic performance of individual students who have never been suspended, but who attend schools where others are suspended. After tracking nearly 17,000 students over three years, two Midwestern researchers found that high rates of school suspensions harmed math and reading scores for non-suspended students.

Editor's note: Connecting parents, students and community members to schools is a key part of establishing a positive school climate -- a place where people feel welcome and accepted. A positive school climate affects teachers' and students' emotional and behavioral health, as well as their engagement in academics.

The profound challenges of coming to terms with the underlying issues of race raised by the police killings of Eric Garner and Michael Brown were on full display at a Berkeley Unified School District forum I attended just before the winter holidays.

The fact that a "Black Lives Matter" forum was necessary at all in a place known as one of the most progressive communities in the world was depressing. Yet it was also energizing that a frank conversation along those lines was being held in a place too often, and perhaps unfairly, known for its political correctness.

A slew of new laws affecting students' physical, emotional and behavioral wellbeing will change how schools operate this year, in ways large and small. The laws regulate basic needs grants for truant students, pesticide use and expulsions for "willfully defiant" behavior, among other issues. 

 

As of Jan. 1: CalWORKS benefits restored for truants

 

Families that receive CalWORKS basic needs grants will no longer have their grants reduced or eliminated if their child is truant.  

 

Read more at EdSource Today. 

Eight members of high school football team in Los Angeles County and two siblings of football players contracted asceptic meningitis, a brain inflammation, in August, according to a new field report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.The report did not name the school.

The 10 patients had symptoms of fever, stiff neck and headache. Five of those who fell ill were hospitalized for a total of 12 days.

The majority of the patients tested positive for echovirus 30, a virus that affects the gastrointestinal tract and can cause asceptic meningitis. Investigators determined that virus was  most likely transmitted through shared water bottles, unwashed water bottles and unwashed hands.

"School staff members were asked to encourage proper hand hygiene and discourage shared water bottles to avoid future outbreaks," the CDC field report noted.

By T. Elijah Hawkes, school principal, Huffington Post