Prioritizing Community over Isolation in Schools
Used to de-escalate emotional outbreaks in students, isolating kids as punishment in school has negative long-term consequences. Isolation often further separates students from the class, lowers their social status, and reinforces negative social power hierarchies that disproportionately affect students who are minorities.
Problem
When schools use isolation practices to de-escalate emotional outbreaks in students, they often create further problems for both the student and the community. In the short term, isolation unnecessarily separates a student from their classroom, and in the long term it is likely to disproportionately affect marginalized students and visible minorities. Isolating students from the classroom results in a loss of academic and social learning opportunities, can contribute to students’ antisocial behavior, lack of community-based mindsets, and perpetuates the school-to-prison pipeline.
Our Plan
We must establish community-based approaches to handling behavioral issues in classrooms that honor student emotions, encourage social responsibility, promote self-regulation, and promote equity and positive outcomes for all students.
Equip all schools with counselors, psychologists, and social workers to meet student and family needs.
Integrate regular weekly social-emotional lessons into the curriculum as part of reading, social studies, science, and its own content area.
Offer training for instructors, parents, and students on promoting, teaching, and exercising self-regulation.
Provide professional development training on how to view and address behavior issues as a community issue.
Move away from the use of isolated schools and halfway schools, which perpetuate racial and class inequality.
Ensure all schools provide lessons to students on positive community building techniques and methods for students to relay concerns about teacher handling of issues without fear of punishment.
Incorporate professional development that requires teachers to continuously reflect on and address their biases in the use of negative isolation practices in the classroom.
Why This Matters
Educational theory has long shown that building relationships are an essential factor in creating a successful classroom. Focusing on social-emotional learning is a critical strategy for positively addressing behavioral issues in classrooms and combating social inequity.