SECTION 1.  After a year of making improvements to decrease the suspension and expulsion rates, in compliance with Chapter 222 after it was once placed into law, the results were encouraging.  Before the law, the rate that students were removed from the classroom showed Whites at 2.7%, Latinos at 8.4%, Disabilities at 8.5% and Blacks at 10.0%.  This was a terrible time for education in Massachusetts.

This past year shows that problems of removing students from the classroom have increased again.  There are systems and tools available, and in use in Massachusetts, that can help failing school districts to refocus on the goal keeping students in the classroom. 

SECTION 2.  The following systems and tools that work for students in diverse population are “Restorative Justice and “Personalized Learning (Summit Learning).

The use of there types of systems and tools have demonstrated their values in keeping students in the classroom.  This bill should legislatively ensure that school districts with high rates of students being removed from the classrooms begin using these types of systems and tools that will help them do a better job of correcting their problem. 

SECTION 3. The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education should track school districts with high student classroom removal rates to ensure that they use systems and tools to become compliance with the Chapter 222 law that was implemented July 1, 2014.