Bill to Ban ‘Willful Defiance' School Suspensions Authored by CA State Senator Nancy Skinner

Senator Nancy Skinner at a Justice Collaborative event in San Francisco in March 2020 By Cynthia Hoang-Duong and Destiny Gurrola BERKELEY, CA – Eas...

February 7, 2023
3:30 AM

Senator Nancy Skinner at a Justice Collaborative event in San Francisco in March 2020 By Cynthia Hoang-Duong and Destiny Gurrola BERKELEY, CA – East Bay State Senator Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley) announced her SB 274 legislation late last week, which would ban the practice of suspending students for minor behavior issues — or 'willful defiance' — in public and charter schools in California, grades TK-12. In a prepared statement, Skinner claimed, 'SB 274 puts the needs of students first. Instead of kicking them out of school, we owe it to students to figure out what's causing them to act out and help them fix it.

Cynthia Hoang-Duong