Dec. 18 (UPI) — A school safety commission assembled by President Donald Trump is expected Tuesday to recommend rolling back Obama-era policies to prevent racial discrimination in school discipline.
The report by the Federal Commission on School Safety, which was created in response to the February mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., is set to focus primarily on addressing school discipline guidelines and other issues like mental health and school security, while making no recommendations regarding gun control legislation, The Washington Post reported.
The Justice Department implemented the guidelines in 2014 to alert school districts of potential civil rights law violations if black students or students of other racial minorities are suspended, expelled or disciplined in other ways at higher rates than white students.
Supporters of the legislation have said the guidelines provide a means to address disparities in discipline between white and minority students that are occasionally driven by unintentional racial bias. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who also heads the commission, and other detractors argue it is an example of the federal government overstepping its bounds.
The commission chose to focus on the Obama guidelines in part because Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz, a former MSD student, was a participant in Broward County’s Promise program which provides alternatives forms of discipline to arrest for some students.
Although the Promise program was launched a year before the Obama guidelines were put into place, it has been viewed as an early example of the kind of initiatives schools may implement to lessen the racial disparities in regards to discipline.
The commission’s report will cite studies and surveys expressing discontent with the discipline policy, along with examples from states like Texas and Wisconsin where discipline was found to play a role in students’ academic performance, The New York Times reported.
The report is not expected to address how the Obama-era guidelines may have contributed to the Parkland shooting, considering none of the most high-profile school shootings were carried out by black students and Cruz is white, the Times report said.
Along with the changes to the Obama program, the report is also expected to provide guidelines for schools that wish to arm teachers, but won’t explicitly recommend that they do so. It also will not recommend raising the minimum age for firearm purchases.
Most of the report is set to focus on “best practices” on subjects like violent entertainment, press coverage of mass shootings, access to mental health treatment and school building security.
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