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House Committee Holds Hearing on School Climate and Safety

Screenshot of hearing title

On Wednesday, the House Education and Labor Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education held a hearing, Serving All Students: Promoting a Healthier, More Supportive School Environment. Subcommittee Chairman Kilili Sablan (D-NMI) remarked that the hearing purpose was to examine “the steps we must take to help schools implement proven practices that will support students’ academic, social, and emotional development.”

  • Witness Guy Stephens, Founder and Executive Director of the Alliance Against Seclusion and Restraint, described the traumatic effects of restraint and seclusion on his son with autism. He advocated for passage of the Keeping All Students Safe Act, federal legislation which CEC has endorsed that would significantly limit restraint and ban seclusion.
  • Witness Morgan Craven, J.D., National Director of Policy, Advocacy, and Community Engagement at IDRA, focused her testimony on the disproportionate impact that exclusionary discipline has on students of color, students with disabilities, and LGBTQ+ youth.
  • Kristen Harper, Vice President for Public Policy and Engagement at Child Trends discussed the importance of increasing schools’ capacities to improve student health and well-being and on the evidence that exclusionary discipline is harmful to students.
  • Max Eden, Research Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, pointed to teachers’ unions as the root cause for student mental health challenges, questioned whether data about restraint and seclusion was being taken out of context, questioned the need for federal action on issues related to school climate and safety, and warned that fundamental changes in discipline practices cause harm to teachers and students.

During the two-and-a-half hour-long hearing, Committee Members focused questions on themes including exclusionary discipline, gun violence, school closures, and mask mandates and their impact on student mental health and well-being.

View the hearing

Posted:  18 February, 2022
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