By Steven Allen Adams, The Parkersburg News and Sentinel
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The West Virginia House of Delegates took a bill passed during last year’s session dealing with student discipline issues and expanded it with a new bill passed Wednesday, setting up a possible conflict with the state Senate.
The House passed House Bill 4776 Wednesday morning, adding elementary schools into school disciplinary measures, in a 92-4 vote. The bill now heads to the Senate.
HB 4776 expands on a bill passed by the House last year. House Bill 2890 allows teachers in grades six through 12 to exclude students from the classroom who are disorderly, interfering in the educational process, or obstructing a teacher from their classrooms for the remainder of the school day.
“House Bill 4776 provides the circumstances by which a teacher may remove a student in grades pre-K through fifth grade from the classroom,” said House Education Committee Chairman Joe Ellington, R-Mercer.
HB 4776 would allow teachers to remove students from the classroom for pre-Kindergarten through fifth grade, but only under limited circumstances. Teachers would have to show through documentation that a student’s behavior is repeatedly interfering with their ability to teach and other students’ ability to learn. It gives authority for the teacher to determine whether a student has shown consistent disruptive behavior or commits physical acts of harm and violence.
A student removed from an elementary school classroom would not be returned to the classroom without the teacher’s consent unless a committee determines that returning the student to that classroom is the best option. However, if a student is removed from a classroom for violent behavior, that student cannot be returned to the classroom without the teacher’s consent.
