On Tuesday, the Alabama Senate voted to reject controversial legislation that would have set up a formal due process standard for disciplining a child in an Alabama public school.
Senate Bill 181 (SB181) is sponsored by State Senator Rodger Smitherman.
The synopsis states, “This bill would provide a uniform statewide system of procedural due process protections relating to the suspension and expulsion of public school students for violating the student code of conduct or state law. This bill would also provide for the adoption of any necessary rules to implement this act by the State Board of Education.”
The bill, after being amended, was voted down rapidly with no floor debate.
Smitherman then took an hour of time during the next bill to voice his unhappiness with the Senate’s rejection of his legislation.
“Last year, we passed the same bill out of the Senate almost unanimous,” Smitherman said.
Last year the legislation failed in the House of Representatives. The legislation was staunchly opposed by Alabama School Superintendents and other education supporters.
“It is obvious they did a good lobbying effort among our colleagues to kill the bill,” Smitherman said. “The school superintendents, they have elevated their power now to the point that they can convince all but eleven people that these children do not need due process.”
“Those little children ain’t going to have anybody standing out there (in the Statehouse halls) talking for them,” Smitherman said.
“Who is getting suspended? Who is getting so many days? and for what reason?” Smitherman said heavily, implying that school systems target Black students, particularly males, for discipline.
“The teacher is the judge, jury, and executioner,” Smitherman said.
“They (the accused children) don’t get the first benefit of the doubt,” Smitherman said. “They are guilty until they are proved innocent.”
The most controversial element of Smitherman’s legislation was giving a student the right to face their accuser.
The Greene County Superintendent testified before committee that students fear retaliation by other students, so a student who might tell a teacher that another child has a gun in school; would not come forward if her identity was revealed.
Smitherman also opposes the mandatory kindergarten bill that would force a child who did not attend kindergarten as a five-year-old to be denied admission into first grade. He also opposes the Alabama Literacy Act provision that a child that can’t read at grade level by the end of the third grade will have to repeat third grade.
“First, they want to hold them back in the first grade,” Smitherman said. “If they don’t get them there, then they want to hold them back in third grade. If they don’t get them there, then they use these discipline policies to suspend or expel them.”
“They ain’t going to stay in school when they are 21,” Smitherman said. “If they don’t get an education, they ain’t gonna get a job. If they have no job, they can’t eat.”
Smitherman called the schools a “pipeline to prison.”
The Legislature is also concerned with criminal gangs operating within many Alabama schools.
The Senate voted down SB181 11 to 20.
Jabo Waggoner, Tom Butler, Arthur Orr, and Greg Reed were the only Republicans to vote for the bill. Billy Beasley was the only Democrat who voted against the legislation.
The controversial legislation appears to be dead for this session.
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