Hundreds of SC preschoolers suspended each year for offenses like hitting, spitting

Louise Johnson, head of the Department of Mental Health's division for children and adolescents, talks during a Joint Citizens and Legislative Committee on Children on Tuesday, Aug. 20, 2024. (Screenshot of SCETV legislative livestream)

COLUMBIA — More than 900 children ages 3 and 4 were suspended from South Carolina preschools last school year for offenses such as hitting, spitting and disobeying their teachers, according to a report given Tuesday to a panel of lawmakers, agency heads and community members.

South Carolina suspends more pre-K students than any other state, according to the most recent federal data, University of South Carolina researchers told the Joint Citizens and Legislative Committee on Children.

Suspensions at any grade level, but especially as young as 3 or 4 years old, can have long-term consequences on how well a student does in school and even how likely they are to get arrested later in life, according to the U.S. Department of Education .

The latest federal data offering state-by-state comparisons comes from the 2017-2018 school year. It shows 438 preschoolers in public schools statewide were given at-home suspension at least once. That’s nearly twice as many as in Texas, which reported the next-highest number of preschoolers suspended at 262.

“If our default is suspension, that’s not good,” Senate Minority Leader Brad Hutto, D-Orangeburg, said during an April committee meeting.

The Palmetto State’s numbers have grown since then.

The state didn’t start tracking suspensions for 3- and 4-year-olds until 2016. Last school year marked an all-time high since. The numbers reflect suspensions at public schools only. They do not include preschoolers in state-funded 4K programs at private providers or federally funded Head Start programs.

School districts reported suspending 928 students during the 2023-2024 school year, compared to 812 the year before, according to department data. That represents 3.3% of the 27,500 preschoolers enrolled in 3- and 4-year-old classes when the school year started.

Whether the suspension is handled at school or the child is sent home — and for how long — depends on what happened and district policy. Last school year, 658 students received out-of-school suspensions, and 270 received in-school suspension, researchers said.

What in-school suspension looks like for a preschooler varies across school districts.

In most cases, a student is removed from the classroom for some period of time. Sometimes, the student must sit in a school administrator’s office or do their work in a different classroom. Other times, they’re asked to step outside or sit in the hallway until they calm down, districts said in response to a survey.

Students at any grade level who are expelled or suspended are up to 10 times more likely to drop out of school, have a hard time getting good grades or end up getting arrested later in life than their peers. Suspending a preschooler increases the likelihood they will face similar discipline in later grades, according to a U.S. Department of Education statement disavowing expulsions and suspensions for young children.

“A child’s early years set the trajectory for the relationships and successes they will experience for the rest of their lives, making it crucial that children’s earliest experiences truly foster — and never harm — their development,” the statement reads.

If a student is repeatedly taken out of the classroom, even for a brief amount of time, they can lose out on time during which they could be learning foundational skills, said Louise Johnson, who oversees the Department of Mental Health’s division for children and adolescents.

“If it’s habitual and they’re going somewhere on their own and supposed to keep up on their work, then that’s a problem, and I’ve seen that happen in some of the schools,” Johnson said.

Who’s getting suspended?

Preschoolers being suspended are most likely to be Black and male, the researchers said.

Last year, more than 60% of the children who received in-school or out-of-school suspensions were children of color, and 77% were boys, researchers found.

Students with some form of disability account for nearly a fifth of all suspensions over the past eight years the committee evaluated.

Children in a state-funded preschool are already considered “at risk.” It’s unclear how the suspension rates compare to the overall demographics.

To be eligible for state-funded pre-K, children must live in poverty, be in foster care, have a parent in prison, or have a disability, which can include developmental delays. However, some school districts use local tax dollars to expand who’s eligible for their pre-K programs.

Over the period of eight school years, 4,765 children received suspensions. A demographics breakdown:

• Male: 3,767; or 79%
• Female: 977
• Black: 2,484; or 52%
• White: 1,575
• Multi-race: 353
• Hispanic: 322
• Asian/Indian/Pacific Islander: 30
• Students with disabilities: 997; or 21%

Source: Joint Citizens and Legislative Committee on Children

Still, committee members said they worried that teachers might treat Black and male students more harshly than their counterparts. Plus, students being repeatedly disciplined are likely to be acting out because they have a problem at home, they said.

“We talk about the behavior of the children — what if the behavior isn’t really that bad but it’s the bias of the teacher?” said Michael Leach, Department of Social Services director. “I hate to say it, but it exists.”

‘Problem behaviors’

What qualifies a student for a suspension is up to school districts. In some cases, preschools reported suspending students for running, excessive noise, failing to complete classwork or leaving class, committee researchers found.

Because school districts report the reasons to the state, the severity of cases is unclear, researchers said.

Some students might genuinely be causing harm or difficulties for already-overburdened teachers, Hutto said during a previous meeting.

“I get it,” Hutto said. “If I’m a teacher and there’s one child that’s just keeping me from teaching the other 20, I’ve got to do something, right? I can’t just let one child run the show.

“But on the other hand,” he continued, “you move that one child out at this level, and you’re putting them on a course to eventually be right at (the Department of Social Services’) or (Department of Juvenile Justice’s) doorstep because we haven’t dealt with the problem as a 3- and 4-year-old.”

Some schools apply a universal code of conduct across grade levels. That means a high school senior and preschooler could face the same level of punishment for offenses like horseplay or disrupting class. High schoolers should know better than to roughhouse or interrupt class time, but that type of behavior is “par for the course” for a 3-year-old, said committee member Bronwyn McElveen.

For instance, she has 3-year-old and 6-year-old sons who sometimes get rowdy, but that doesn’t mean they’re acting out in a way that should get them suspended from school, she said.

“We get the comments, ‘Oh, they’re all boy,’ or, ‘They have a lot of spirit,’” McElveen said of her sons. “How that would be treated in a classroom might be different.”

In many cases, students receive more than one suspension each year. The 928 students suspended last year received more than 1,900 suspensions total, according to the data presented to the committee.

“I’ve gone into schools and said, ‘Why is this child always sitting outside the room, or always removed?’” Johnson said.

That suggests suspensions are not changing the children’s behavior, Sen. Mike Reichenbach said.

“Sounds like there’s a high degree of recidivism,” the Florence Republican said. “I’m not advocating against suspensions — if they work, then so be it — but how do we get (students) better instead of just suspending them and they do it again?”

Children that young likely don’t understand what a suspension really means, Hutto said. To some, it may even seem more like a reward than a punishment to be sent to a different room or home for a few days.

“Think about it: ‘Hey, if I act out, I can go home, I can watch TV,’” Hutto said. “I think I’m acting out.”

Solutions

One solution could be requiring preschool teachers to take a course on how to deal with students acting out in class instead of sending them home, committee members said.

In a statewide survey, which 58 of 76 school districts completed, 31% said they already required training for teachers on handling challenging behavior in young children. Another 52% said they offered training but did not require it, while 10% said they had no training at all on that topic.

When asked what could help reduce preschool suspensions, districts suggested standardized training courses for teachers, help developing more age-appropriate codes of conduct or behavior specialists to work with students repeatedly causing problems.

Requiring standardized training on behavioral problems in 3- and 4-year-olds would be a relatively easy way to start reducing suspensions, said McElveen, who is also a deputy solicitor. That training could also teach educators how to avoid bias in their decisions and consider whether a child’s behavior is an indicator of a deeper problem, such as abuse at home, she added.

“For minimal cost, you could have a lot of bang for your buck on that,” McElveen said. “Bringing in a behavioral specialist would be ideal, but that would be a lot more cost-prohibitive, in my opinion.”

The state could also require districts to change their codes of conduct to use different methods of discipline for different age groups, committee members said. Several school districts reported that they were already reevaluating those policies or would be open to help from behavioral professionals in deciding what is age-appropriate and what’s not.

Beyond that, the committee will continue gathering more information and evaluating possible solutions to see what might work.

“There is no silver bullet,” Johnson said. “We’ll need a comprehensive approach in order to address these issues.”

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX