This article was originally published in CommonWealth Beacon.
In 2012, after child advocates spent years trying to reduce punitive suspensions in schools, Massachusetts passed sweeping education reforms under Chapter 222, kickstarting a longstanding policy shift away from exclusionary discipline methods.
The law came as the nation moved away from the Zero-Tolerance policies of the 1990s and toward efforts to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline. Chapter 222 established new due process and data reporting requirements for school districts regarding the discipline and exclusion of students. The underlying principle was to make exclusionary methods like suspension a last resort and require those who are removed from the classroom to continue receiving access to learning materials…