Sponsor
Cory Anthony Booker
Senator · D-NJ
Senator · D-NJ
The bill shifts K–12 discipline policy toward clearer definitions, data-driven transparency, stronger civil‑rights enforcement, mental‑health supports, and reduced exclusionary discipline (especially for students of color and students with disabilities) at the cost of substantial, open‑ended federal spending, increased reporting/compliance burdens, and privacy and local‑safety trade‑offs.
Students — especially Black, Brown, and other students of color (including girls of color), students with disabilities, LGBTQI+ students, and English learners — would face fewer suspensions, expulsions, and informal removals, reducing lost instructional time and lowering school-to-juvenile-justice pushout.
Students would gain greater access to mental-health supports (counselors, social workers, trauma-informed services) and face tighter limits on harsh restraints and seclusion, improving student safety, wellbeing, and learning outcomes.
Families, communities, advocates, and regulators would get better information through required annual, disaggregated, ADA‑compliant and multilingual public reports on suspensions, expulsions, arrests, and other exclusionary actions, improving transparency and enabling targeted equity interventions.
The bill creates large, open‑ended federal spending (about $1 billion per year) with no offsets or sunset, increasing federal budget pressures and potential long‑term costs for taxpayers.
Significant new administrative, reporting, training, and hiring requirements for districts, states, and schools will impose time and cost burdens that could divert staff and funds from other programs and be difficult to sustain after grant periods end.
Detailed, highly disaggregated public reporting raises privacy and re‑identification risks for small subgroups and could stigmatize schools or communities identified as having patterns of discipline disparities before causes are understood.
Based on analysis of 7 sections of legislative text.
Mandates federal discipline data collection, bans many exclusionary practices and harsh restraints, funds grants and a task force to reduce discriminatory school pushout.
Official title: Reduce exclusionary discipline practices in schools, and for other purposes.
Introduced April 8, 2025 by Cory Anthony Booker · Last progress April 8, 2025
Creates a federal program to reduce exclusionary and discriminatory school discipline, especially the “pushout” of girls of color. It requires annual, disaggregated data collection on suspensions, expulsions, arrests, referrals, and placements; funds competitive “Healing School Climate” grants that ban many exclusionary practices and limit physical restraints; creates a joint 21-member task force to study and recommend reforms; and authorizes substantial ongoing annual funding to support the data work, grants, and task force. The bill emphasizes protecting students with disabilities and students of color, preventing criminalization in schools, supporting trauma-informed and culturally sustaining practices, and making reporting public and privacy‑protected. It funds the Department of Education and HHS activities at $500 million per year for data/Office for Civil Rights work and $500 million per year for grants and the task force, with no specified end date.