A bill that would require Ohio school districts to adopt a policy of expelling a student posing an “immediate and serious threat” for 180 days and potentially longer has passed the state Legislature and will head to Gov. Mike DeWine’s desk.
The Ohio Senate passed House Bill 206 With 23-7 voted, and the Ohio House, by a vote of 61 to 25, agreed with the changes made to the bill. Once the bill is received, DeWine has 10 days to sign it or veto it.
State Reps. Gary Click, R-Vickery, and Monica Robb Blasdel, R-Columbiana, introduced HB 206.
The bill defines an “imminent and serious threat” as bringing a firearm or knife to school “likely to cause serious bodily injury,” causing a bomb threat in a school building, causing stern physical harm to someone at school, or making “an articulated or verbalized threat, including hit list, threatening manifesto or social media post that would lead a reasonable person to conclude that the student posed a serious threat,” according to the director of education. Bill’s language.
“The goal is not to deprive a child of an education, but to stop the inadvertent readmission of any student who may still pose an immediate threat to a school full of other students and faculty,” said State Senator Andrew Brenner of Delaware.
State Sen. Louis W. Blessing III, R-Colerain Township, was the only Republican in the Senate to vote against the bill. Three Democratic state representatives voted in favor of the bill — Sean Brennan, Richard Dell’Aquila and Adam Miller.
State Sen. Catherine D. Ingram, D-Cincinnati, said she supports school safety but has concerns about the bill.
“Unfortunately, if a child walks across a room and takes someone’s cell phone and hits it, it could actually warrant expulsion,” she said.
The act would allow, among other things: district school board to create policy it would authorize the superintendent to create conditions for an expelled student that he or she would have to meet before being reinstated – including an evaluation by a psychiatrist, a licensed psychologist, or a licensed school psychologist to assess whether the student poses a risk. Under the bill, an expelled student could then be reinstated to school if the superintendent determines he or she has “demonstrated sufficient rehabilitation.”
A student’s expulsion may be extended for 90 days at a time, and there is no limit to the number of times a student’s expulsion may be extended. The average school year is approximately 180 days, and the bill would require the superintendent to have a list of alternative educational options for an expelled student.
The bill amendment requires public schools to report demographic information about expelled students to the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce.
Earlier this year Ohio Children’s Defense Fund released a report showing that black male students were 4.3 times more likely to be suspended or expelled than their white peers.
The report showed Black students made up 39.7 of every 100 students with “discipline cases”. Students with disabilities who were suspended or expelled accounted for 22.2 per 100 students, and students considered economically disadvantaged had a 21.5 discipline rate per 100 students.
The Senate Education Committee added several amendments to HB 206, including one that modifies the state’s school closure law. Currently, Ohio charter schools automatically close if they have three years in a row of indigent results.
Under the bill, charter schools facing closure would have an additional two years to improve if they achieved a state report card performance indicator score that was within five points below the score required to receive a two-star achievement rating.
“As long as they maintain them and do everything they can to improve them, we won’t put them on the closure list so the state doesn’t take them over,” Brenner said. “But they need to improve every year, and this will basically be a quasi rolling average for the next two years. If at any time they fall below this level, they will automatically be closed for the following year.”
The Ohio Department of Education and Labor has requested an amendment that would escalate appropriation authority for school choice program administration in fiscal year 2025 from $4 million to a maximum of $8.14 million.
“The department is asking for some funding to be reallocated to cover school choice administration costs because they have already had several lawsuits going on and it is costing them a lot of money to fight existing school choice lawsuits,” Brenner said.
Vouchers Hurt Ohio filed suit in 2022 against the EdChoice private school voucher program, arguing that the program has grown disproportionately while resources for public school districts have decreased. About 200 school districts in Ohio have them joined the lawsuitwhich will go to trial next year.
Follow the OCJ reporter Megan Henry in Bluesky.
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