Archive: October 2003

Teacher Right to Suspend
By Steve Kaplan, UniServe Field Organizer

The Safety Article (11) explicitly states the teachers right to suspend a student from their classroom. The Section 11.7, Pupil Discipline, reads in part:

11.7.3. A unit member may suspend a student from his/her class for the day of the incident and the day following for good cause. The unit member shall report the suspension to the principal or designee and send the student to the principal or designee for appropriate action. The principal or unit member must contact the parent or guardian to set up a parent/teacher conference regarding the suspension. The principal or designee shall inform the unit member of the action taken regarding the suspended student in writing in a
format to be determined by the shared decision-making process.

11.7.4. Acts for which a unit member may suspend a student from the class are enumerated in Education Code 48900 and include, among others, insubordination, striking of any school personnel, damaging property, endangering the safety of others, and consistent refusal to respond to directions of the unit member. (Editor's note: the list of suspendable acts is much longer and can be accessed by looking at the Education Code Section.)

The above Sections imbed the Education Code 48910 teacher right to
suspend into the Contract. The code section states in part:

• The pupil shall not be returned to the class from which he or
  she was suspended, during the period of the suspension, without the
  concurrence of the teacher of the class and the principal.
  
• A pupil suspended from a class shall not be placed in another
  regular class during the period of suspension.

The complete Education Code section is worth reading.