Resources: Real Alternatives: Ending Disciplinary Alternative Education

Fifty years ago, in Goss v. Lopez, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed that students have a right to due process before a suspension and expulsion.

Across the United States, publicly funded “alternative” schools aim to provide a different educational environment for students whose needs are not met by traditional school environments.

The term “alternative school” may be used to describe charter schools, magnet schools, remote learning programs, or even juvenile detention centers.

In Louisiana, the state of this report’s focus, a state statute defines alternative education as existing for “disruptive” students, and, as a result, alternative schools in Louisiana are disciplinary by design.

Beyond Louisiana, however, public school systems throughout the country transfer expelled or suspended students to disciplinary alternative schools — again, referred to in this report as alternative schools.

The data shows that students at such alternative schools are at higher risk of academic failure, truancy, and failing to complete their degrees as a result of the lower quality of education and the lack of supervision provided in alternative school environments.

Once transferred, it can be difficult for these students to reenroll in a traditional public-school setting.

In Louisiana, placement at an alternative school is required by statute for students who face long-term suspensions or expulsion.

Students with disabilities and students of color have long borne the disproportionate burden of these disciplinary exclusions.

Students with disabilities and students of color have long borne the disproportionate burden of these disciplinary exclusions.

Black students in particular have been routinely over-punished and condemned for the same youthful student misbehavior in which their white counterparts engage.

Louisiana’s Black students have been subject to school pushout at alarming rates, making them increasingly vulnerable to ending up in the youth justice system and having other negative outcomes.

From 2017-2018, Louisiana had the third-highest out-of-school suspension rate (8.98%) and second-highest expulsion rate (0.81%) in the country, according to U.S. Department of Education figures — with its expulsion rate being over four times the national average. During that same period, more than one in eight Black students (13.2%) in Louisiana were suspended from Louisiana’s public schools.

Given these disproportionate rates of discipline, it is no surprise that disciplinary, involuntary transfers to alternative schools occur at disproportionately high rates to Black students and students with disabilities.

For instance, in Louisiana’s 2015-2016 school year, 26% of the student population at alternative schools were students with disabilities and 85% were Black.

Every student is constitutionally guaranteed the right to notice and a hearing before suspension or expulsion, and many state constitutions and statutes, including in Louisiana, require the same.

Students with disabilities also have the right to a Manifestation Determination Review (MDR) meeting before the school can change the placement of a child with a disability for disciplinary reasons.

The requirement to hold an MDR applies to more than just students who have been identified as eligible for special education services and already have IEPs.

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) also requires MDRs to be held for unidentified students with disabilities when the school district has “knowledge” of the disability.

Generally, this means that if the evaluation process started before the events giving rise to the disciplinary action, then the child has a right to an MDR before exclusion.

As outlined in the SPLC’s Only Young Once youth justice report series, disciplinary alternative schools are an outgrowth of the “zero tolerance” discipline movement in the late 20^th century.

In general, schools across the U.S. adopted punitive disciplinary policies in the late 1980s and early 1990s, after zero tolerance policies became more popular following passage of the Gun-Free School Zones Act, signed into law by President George H.W. Bush in 1990.

These policies were aimed at applying uniform punishment and decreasing misbehavior, drugs, and violence in schools; instead, they led to an increase in suspensions and expulsions, and worsened racial disparities in school discipline.

In Louisiana, for example, Dr. Cade Brumley and the Louisiana Department of Education recently issued a report called “Let Teachers Teach.” The report calls for placing “ungovernable students” at alternative sites for behavior support — in other words, placing students with behavioral disabilities, among other students, in a restricted, isolated, and segregated setting away from their peers. It also recommends removal of critical accountability metrics, such as suspension rates, which are required to prevent discriminatory exclusion of students with disabilities and students of color.

The trend extends well beyond Louisiana. For over two decades, officials in Georgia have advocated for alternative schools to separate children deemed “disruptive” from other youth. The result has been persistent racial disparities in alternative school placements, and highly detrimental outcomes for youth placed there.

Once assigned to an alternative school, students are often made to navigate through instructional materials on their own, sitting at a computer while working through workbooks independently. A teacher may be there to answer questions and provide supervision, but is not necessarily there to lead class instruction. Frequently, youth in alternative schools are also often steered away from pursuing high school diplomas and onto GED tracks.

The persistent disparities in disciplinary alternative school referrals means that students at alternative schools frequently face segregation. Some students in alternative schools are housed in a separate classroom provided in the student’s traditional school, while others are transferred to programs provided at an entirely different school.

In Louisiana, youth and families report that these schools are sometimes housed in courthouses, “boot camps” and other punitive or carceral settings.

Indeed, in Louisiana, schools in juvenile detention are also considered alternative schools.

About five to 10 years ago, enrollment in alternative schools saw a general decline nationally⁽¹⁾, and that trend was reflected in Louisiana⁽²⁾, particularly after LDOE issued its 2017 report with recommendations to reform alternative education.⁽³⁾

However, Black students and students with disabilities remain overrepresented when compared to student populations in traditional schools.

Further research has shown that Black students and students with disabilities are not only overrepresented but have historically had longer stays than their white peers, and sometimes Latinx peers, in alternative programs.

Despite the overrepresentation of Black students with disabilities in these schools, only about 39% of states have alternative education statutes related to students with disabilities.

These trends are reflected and further clarified in the 2019 report on alternative schools released by the Government Accountability Office (GAO); the GAO reported that national enrollment in all alternative schools declined by about 25% between the 2013-2014 and the 2015-2016 school years.

However, about 75% of this reduction was due to declines in white and Latinx student enrollment, while declines in Black student enrollment only accounted for about 25% of the overall change. The report also found that enrollment of students with disabilities dropped by 12%, yet Black students and students with disabilities, particularly boys, remained overrepresented in alternative schools.

Students in disciplinary alternative schools are usually transferred to these programs involuntarily, but sometimes they report being coerced into “voluntary” placement.

For example, a school may threaten to mark an expulsion on a student’s permanent record, if a parent refuses to agree to an alternative school. These kinds of disciplinary alternative placements are not typically reflected in public reporting.

School suspensions and expulsions not only lead to involuntary transfers to alternative schools but also have led to arrests, referrals to law enforcement and involvement with the juvenile justice system.

Since the beginning of the use of alternative schools, student arrests, police referrals, the juvenile justice system, and the suspensions and expulsions that lead to such involuntary transfers have been intimately linked.

Harris v. Atlanta Independent School System, a class action lawsuit filed in 2008, highlights how alternative schools can create highly punitive environments of violence and fear, including daily, invasive, and humiliating searches.

Another police officer under the supervision of the school hit a different student on the leg with a police baton to punish him for leaving a classroom without the teacher’s permission.

Still, school administrators threatened him with an expulsion on his permanent record if he did not waive his right to a due process hearing and attend the alternative school.[52]

Students in disciplinary alternative schools, such as the ones described in Atlanta and in St. Bernard, report not only a lack of extracurricular activities, lockers, and school materials like textbooks, but an abundance of surveillance, searches, and school resource officers (SROs).

In addition to the lack of tangible resources, alternative schools often have fewer support staff like nurses, psychologists and social workers,

The inferior educational opportunities, lack of support, and over-policing of students in these schools all contribute to a greater risk of dropping out, which can limit a student’s employment prospects and increase the likelihood of poverty.⁽¹⁾⁽²⁾

A 2019 GAO report showed that alternative schools in Florida make up at least 5% of schools in many school districts in the state, with alternative schools making up at least 10% of schools in some districts. Little better are the several school districts in Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama where alternative schools comprise at least 5% of the schools within the district.

A report on alternative schools in Mississippi noted that a disproportionate number of the students placed into the alternative school setting were Black students and students with disabilities.

The report found Mississippi alternative schools struggle to provide the resources needed to provide services to students with disabilities, citing the example of one county school in 2005 that provided none of the services described in its special education students’ Individualized Education Plans (IEPs).

A 2020 GAO report on 15 states’ accountability systems for alternative school performance found that Georgia utilized college and career readiness metrics, extended-year graduation rates, and attendance rates to assess alternative school performance, while Florida used only college and career readiness metrics.

Florida’s focus on career and college readiness omits performance assessments based on graduation rates or absenteeism and thus may not make Florida schools accountable for these measures. In addition to providing insufficient accountability metrics, Florida’s use of alternative schools run by private charter operators mask dropout rates and improve test scores at traditional schools by siloing low-performing students in alternative schools. The GAO report notes some Florida alternative schools may avoid accountability when students withdraw without graduating “by coding hundreds of students who leave as withdrawing to enter adult education, such as GED classes.”

For a more intensive view of disciplinary alternative education in the Deep South, it is instructive to look at the state of alternative schools in Louisiana, where alternative education is required for suspended and expelled students under state law.

The Study Group found that as of the 2015-2016 school year, although Black students made up 44% of the state student population, they made up 85% of the student population in alternative schools due to the overrepresentation of Black students in suspensions and expulsions. Students with disabilities were similarly overrepresented. Students with disabilities made up 11% of the state student population but 26% of students in alternative schools. The majority of students who attend these schools were involuntarily transferred into these programs for minor and sometimes arbitrary infractions, like being disrespectful or using profanity. A full 19% of students at these schools dropped out.

Although most states assign inexperienced teachers to alternative schools or use placement to these schools as punishment, Louisiana is the only state in the South that requires that teachers volunteer or consent to teaching at alternative schools.

Yet, the Study Group found that students at alternative schools still experience limited face-to-face teacher instruction, and that alternative schools fail to employ and retain trained teachers or otherwise provide professional development for teachers at alternative schools.

Despite the recommendations following this report, suspensions and expulsions in Louisiana remain high, and transfers to alternative schools continue to harm and isolate vulnerable students today.

Furthermore, students continue to face arrests, referrals to law enforcement and entanglement with the juvenile justice system.

Since 1990, Louisiana school districts have been required by law to collect and report information about students suspended and expelled to alternative schools, including academic outcomes and educational services.

Based upon this data, as well as an independent study undertaken by the state, LDOE in 2017 released an “Alternative Education Study Group Report” discussing poor alternative education practices in Louisiana and creating Eight Guiding Principles for improvement.

1. Effective alternative education.

2. Transitional processes and supports.

3. Appropriate and effective interventions and supports.

4. Appropriate academic services and career readiness opportunities.

5. Effective teachers and staff with comprehensive training on academic, behavioral, social and emotional needs of student.

6. Consistent data collection.

7. Prioritization of referrals to alternative education services.

8. Community partnership development.

After a public records request (PRR), LDOE provided annual school year reports on alternative education since 2017. These reports do not directly provide updates on the Guiding Principles, and the only data provided in some reports is demographic data. Unfortunately, but not unsurprisingly, the demographic data in each of these reports shows a disproportionately high number of male students, students with disabilities, Black students, and students with lower incomes

And while the report notes in the 2022-2023 school year that 42.9% of alternative schools achieved the highest level possible for student achievement and resulting career and technical education opportunities, 49.9% achieved the lowest three levels on the Strength of Diploma scale, a measure collected by the state describing how well school prepares students for postsecondary education.

Further, the most recent LDOE report from 2024 confirms that credit recovery success in alternative programs is weaker than envisioned by the guiding principles, with “students [only] averaging about four (4) credits while attending [alternative education] sites.”

The 2017 Guiding Principles brought to light substantial failures of Louisiana’s alternative education sites, including gaps in services and limited face-to-face teaching, as well as a lack of appropriate technology, career and technical options, academic counseling, and other services, leading to students at an alternative school in Louisiana being five times more likely than their peers to drop out of school. To the state’s credit, the 2017 report further sought to fix these issues through the set of guiding principles stated above, which are elaborated in action steps to reduce reliance upon alternative schools and improve services for students; however, these principles appear to have been abandoned.

Most recently, in a report called “Let Teachers Teach,” LDOE advocated for the “remov[al] [of] suspension rates as criteria within the school and system accountability model.” The workgroup producing this report recommends placing all “ungovernable middle and high school students at alternative school sites.”

Basically, the Let Teachers Teach report asks the LDOE to allow teachers to send all “ungovernable students” to alternative schools to maintain classroom order, instead of first implementing the required 2017 Guiding Principles interventions.

And to the extent schools refuse to provide notice and a hearing for all students referred to an alternative school — or otherwise isolate and segregate with disabilities from nondisabled peers, without Manifestation Determination Review meetings (MDRs) in alternative settings — such policies may violate federal and state law.

Unfortunately, due to this abandonment, Louisiana’s alternative education system is still facing the same issues of inequity and educational failure, including poor academic outcomes for many students, and high numbers of students leaving alternative schools without a diploma.

Most importantly, the number of students sent to alternative schools for disciplinary reasons remains high. In the 2022-2023 school year, there were 10,252 students sent to alternative education sites for suspensions. Meanwhile, although there have been overall reductions in the student populations of alternative schools since 2018, the total count of students sent to alternative education sites due to expulsions rose from 4,801 in 2018-2019 to 5,045 in 2022-2023.

These rates of alternative education referral track exclusionary discipline figures. While suspensions decreased significantly between 2018 and 2022, they saw a rise again in 2022-2023. Overall suspension rates also increased at all grade levels from the 2021-22 school year to 2022-23.

Academic outcomes for students in alternative education programs remain concerning. Despite an increase in the number of students receiving diplomas (404 in 2018-2019 to 519 in 2022-2023), the number of students dropping out remains high. Roughly 890 alternative high school students dropped out in 2022-2023, and this is twice the number of students who received diplomas in previous years. The average credits earned by students while at alternative sites remained stagnant, with students earning an average of just over four credits across all years.

The burden of this academic deprivation is borne disproportionately by Black students. On average, in 2022-2023, Black students made up 71% of the alternative school population, compared to only 42% statewide.

Meanwhile, students with disabilities identified under the Americans with Disabilities Act represented 13.5% of the population in alternative schools, which is approximately double the average of 6.8% statewide.

In Tangipahoa Parish, Black students comprise 47% of total enrollment but only 20% of AP enrollment. Similarly, in St. Charles Parish, Black students make up 32% of enrollment but only 20% of AP enrollment. This stark underrepresentation in AP coursework reflects inequities in access to advanced academic opportunities and resources. Such disparities are only exacerbated in alternative school settings, where students can lack access to AP courses.