Sponsors (12)
Introduced April 8, 2025 by Ayanna Pressley · Last progress April 8, 2025
The bill aims to reduce exclusionary and discriminatory school discipline and expand supports and transparency for vulnerable students, but it requires significant new data/reporting, administrative capacity, funding, and raises privacy, safety, and implementation trade‑offs for districts and families.
K–12 students (especially young children) will face fewer exclusionary suspensions/expulsions, keeping more kids in class and reducing lost instructional time.
Students from marginalized groups (girls of color, Black and Brown students, students with disabilities, LGBTQ students) will get stronger protections against discriminatory discipline (including grooming/appearance policies and restraints), reducing pushout and criminalization.
Parents, communities, and education officials will gain more disaggregated, public, multilingual data and transparency on school discipline to identify and target disparities.
School districts and states will face substantial new administrative, reporting, compliance, and implementation costs to collect expanded data, update policies, train staff, and run grant programs.
Expanded student‑level, disaggregated data collection and public reporting raises privacy and re‑identification risks for students and families if protections fail.
Limiting exclusionary discipline and restricting certain disciplinary tools (e.g., restraints, corporal punishment, use of law‑enforcement on campus) could create short‑term classroom management and safety concerns for educators and parents if adequate alternative supports are not in place.
Based on analysis of 7 sections of legislative text.
Requires federal data collection on exclusionary discipline, funds grants to reduce discriminatory disciplinary practices, bans many suspensions/expulsions and certain restraints, and creates a task force on girls of color.
Requires the Department of Education’s civil‑rights office to collect detailed, student‑level and aggregated data on exclusionary school discipline and to publish annual reports identifying schools, districts, and states showing patterns of overuse or discrimination. Creates competitive “Healing School Climate Grants” to help schools reduce exclusionary and discriminatory discipline, bans many out‑of‑school suspensions and expulsions for low‑level behaviors (especially for young children), restricts corporal punishment, seclusion, and most physical/chemical restraints, and establishes a joint federal task force to study and recommend ways to stop pushing girls of color out of school. Authorizes up to $500 million per year for the data collection work and $500 million per year for the grants and task force (authorization only). Sets detailed legal definitions, reporting and privacy rules, application and grant conditions, and procedural guardrails for using physical restraints in rare emergencies.