Manatee County will no longer disclose reasons students are expelled
MANATEE -- As the number of students being expelled is rising sharply, the Manatee County School District has decided not to disclose any details leading to the Manatee County School Board vote to expel students.
The school board is set to vote Tuesday on whether to expel a sixth-grader, which would be the sixth student expelled this school year. Excluded from the school board agenda is the final order of expulsion, which explains what the student did to warrant such punishment. The school district had expelled only one student the previous six school years.
Until January, the school board attached the final orders to the agenda, allowing the public to see what behavior warrants having a child removed from public school for the remainder of the year. The district said it stopped including the information because officials feared violating a student's right to privacy covered under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.
The final orders can be considered educational records and fall under the FERPA covering, said school district staff attorney Mitchell Teitelbaum.
"To avoid any possible FERPA violation, we are not attaching any final orders," Teitelbaum said last week.
Although names and other identifying factors are redacted from the final order,
district officials say they are concerned information contained in the final order describing the incident would be enough to identify the student.
FERPA only applies to identifiable student records. If the identifiers are removed in a way someone without "inside knowledge" wouldn't recognize the student, FERPA no longer applies, said Frank LoMonte, executive director of the Student Press Law Center, a nonprofit that helps student journalists. LoMonte has studied FERPA and its limitations.
"The community absolutely has a right to know the grounds for which people are being expelled. Expulsion is a very serious decision, and we all know that there are documented inequities in the use of expulsion that disfavor students of color, so there is a compelling public interest in knowing how those penalties are being meted out," he said in an email. "The public has a right to know whether expulsions have been overused or, conversely, whether students are committing serious offenses for which they receive insufficient punishment."
The student set to be expelled Tuesday will be the third student expelled this year without a publicly available detail of the incident. The sixth-grade boy will be expelled with services, meaning the district will help make sure the student stays on track academically. It is not clear what led to that disciplinary action. It is also not clear which school the student attended. The item is included in the consent portion of the agenda and will likely be finalized without board discussion.
Two female students, one a junior and one a senior, were expelled in January. The board approved the final order Jan. 12 during the consent agenda, without discussion. The students were expelled without services, the most serious type of expulsion. It is not clear what led to that disciplinary action. It is also not clear which school the students attended.
Before January, final orders were included on the agenda, giving the public a glimpse at what district and board officials deem to be a serious enough offense to warrant expulsion. The final orders and the details were also reported by the Bradenton Herald.
In November, the board approved a final order for a 17-year-old Manatee High School student who brought a BB gun to campus in September.
The student was "alternatively placed" for the rest of the year, a punishment the board settled on less serious than a formal expulsion. The final order included the details of how the BB gun was found and the student admitted to bringing the BB gun to school.
In August, the board approved final orders to expel a set of siblings from Palmetto High School who attacked the school principal in May 2015. The final order offers details of the incident, including the principal asking the student to put away a cellphone and the student responding by pushing the principal before attacking him. Her sister then jumped into the fray. The principal and the assistant principal were injured in breaking up the fight.
The 2015-16 school year has been an anomaly for Manatee County, which expelled just one student since 2009, according to Florida Department of Education Records, putting Manatee well below the average for districts across the state.
As a general rule, district officials said they like to consider all their other options before expelling a student. A committee looks at the incident before deciding whether to recommend expulsion.
Students recommended for expulsion are allowed a hearing before the school board. The parent or guardian may allow the hearings to be open to the public if they choose, but hearings are closed to the public otherwise. After the hearing, the school board settles on the final option, which then goes to a vote at a subsequent meeting.
Florida statutes, and subsequently Manatee's student code of conduct, mandate students be expelled for certain actions such as bringing a firearm or a weapon to school, school function or onto school-sponsored transportation. Expulsion is required even if the weapon or firearm was brought for self-defense.
Other offenses, including drug possession or distribution, bullying, harassment, bomb threats, gang activity, felony arrest and sexting, may carry a recommendation for expulsion.
Meghin Delaney, education reporter, can be reached at 941-745-7081. Follow her on Twitter @MeghinDelaney.
This story was originally published February 21, 2016 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Manatee County will no longer disclose reasons students are expelled ."