2013 School Discipline Policy and School Climate Bill of Rights

The LAUSD Board Resolution That Ended Willful Defiance Suspensions and Established Students’ Right to Alternatives

What This Policy Is and Why It Matters

On May 14, 2013, the LAUSD Board of Education adopted one of the most significant school discipline policy reforms in the District’s history: the 2013 School Discipline Policy and School Climate Bill of Rights. This resolution built directly on the 2007 Discipline Foundation Policy and went further, establishing specific, enforceable student rights that no amount of discretion could override.

Most significantly, the resolution declared that beginning Fall 2013, no student in LAUSD could be suspended or expelled for willful defiance, the vague, discretionary category under Education Code 48900(k) that had accounted for nearly 42% of California suspensions and 36% of LAUSD suspensions. Willful defiance had long been a mechanism through which disproportionate punishment fell on Black students and students with disabilities, and its elimination from suspension eligibility was a direct response to years of community advocacy.

The resolution also established a clear standard: no student shall be suspended until a school demonstrates it has exhausted all alternatives as outlined in the Discipline Matrix. Every student has the right to in-school and out-of-school alternatives before any suspension. And by 2020, every LAUSD school was required to develop and implement restorative justice practices, approaches that resolve discipline incidents through understanding, repair, and shared decision-making rather than exclusion.

For South LA parents, this resolution represented years of CADRE’s organizing work paying off at the Board level. The data cited in the resolution, that students are five times more likely to drop out if suspended and that instruction days lost to suspension had dropped from 74,765 in 2006-07 to 26,286 in 2011-12, reflected the very arguments CADRE had been making since 2006. The District was finally acknowledging what South LA families had always known: suspension does not improve behavior. It pushes children out.

This policy remains an important reference point for parents navigating discipline issues today. It spells out what students are entitled to before any suspension can occur and gives families a legal and policy basis for challenging schools that skip to punishment without exhausting alternatives.

Key Highlights

• Eliminates suspensions for willful defiance beginning Fall 2013, closing the most widely abused loophole in school discipline
• Establishes a School Discipline Bill of Rights guaranteeing every student the right to in-school and out-of-school alternatives before any suspension
• Requires a new Discipline Matrix developed with community input, establishing which interventions must be exhausted before any suspension can be issued
• Mandates that all LAUSD schools develop and implement restorative justice practices by 2020, shifting from punitive to healing-centered discipline
• Acknowledges that African American students and students with disabilities are suspended at disproportionate rates and directs the District to address this inequity
• Cites dramatic progress under the Discipline Foundation Policy: instruction days lost to suspension dropped by nearly 65% from 2006-07 to 2011-12
• Reinforces that suspension and expulsion are last resort interventions only, to be used when other means have failed or when there is a serious safety risk

Who This Resource Is For

• Parents and caregivers whose children have been suspended, especially for willful defiance, and want to know their rights
• South LA families seeking to understand the current legal and policy protections governing school discipline in LAUSD
• Parent organizers and advocates holding schools accountable to the full use of alternatives before suspension
• Educators and school administrators required to implement the Discipline Matrix and restorative justice practices
• Legal advocates representing students in suspension and expulsion proceedings
• Researchers and students studying school climate policy, racial equity in discipline, and restorative justice in K-12 education

Publication Details

Title: 2013 School Discipline Policy and School Climate Bill of Rights
Author: Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education
Adopted: May 14, 2013

This policy is part of CADRE’s broader work to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline, outlined in our Theory of Change.