School-to-Prison Pipeline and School Discipline

What Is the School-to-Prison Pipeline

The school-to-prison pipeline is the path that moves students out of classrooms and into the juvenile and criminal courts. It runs through suspensions, expulsions, referrals to police and arrests at school, and each step makes the next one more likely. The term describes a pattern, not a single policy, and the students it reaches most are Black students and students with disabilities.

If Your Child Is Suspended or Arrested at School

A parent has rights at every step, and most of them depend on asking in writing and asking fast. Open the situation closest to yours.

Find your situation

This is general information, not legal advice. District rules and state laws add more rights, so ask the school for its written discipline code.

Police questioned or arrested my child at school

1. Tell your child they can stay silent and ask for a parent and a lawyer before answering police questions, and should not sign a statement.
2. Call the school and the police department to find out where your child is and what the charge is. Ask whether your state required them to notify you first.
3. Ask for a public defender or a juvenile defense lawyer before the first court date. Legal aid groups and your local ACLU affiliate can point you to one.
4. Write down who questioned your child, when, and whether a school official was in the room. Those facts matter if the statement is challenged later.

In J.D.B. v. North Carolina (2011), the Supreme Court held that a child's age counts when deciding whether a student questioned by police at school was in custody and owed Miranda warnings.

My child was suspended

1. Ask for the charge and the evidence in writing. For a suspension of 10 days or less, the Constitution requires notice of the charge and a chance for your child to tell their side.
2. Ask how to appeal and by what date. Appeal deadlines are set by the district and can be a few days.
3. Ask for your child's classwork during the suspension, and ask whether it will go on their record.
4. If the suspension is longer than 10 days or is an expulsion, ask for a hearing and bring an advocate or lawyer.

Goss v. Lopez (1975) sets the notice and hearing floor for short suspensions. States and districts add more.

My child has a disability and keeps getting sent home

1. Count the days. Once removals pass 10 school days in a year in a way that forms a pattern, or one removal runs longer than 10 days, it can count as a change of placement.
2. Ask for a manifestation determination meeting. Within 10 school days of deciding to change the placement, the school and parents must review whether the behavior was caused by the disability or by the school not following the IEP.
3. If the answer is yes, ask for a functional behavioral assessment and a behavior plan, and for your child to return to their placement.
4. If your child has a Section 504 plan instead of an IEP, ask the school what review it does before a long removal.

Individuals with Disabilities Education Act rules, 34 C.F.R. 300.530.

I think the discipline was about race or disability

1. Write down what happened, the dates, and how other students were treated for the same thing.
2. File a complaint with the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights within 180 days. It still takes complaints of intentional race discrimination and disability discrimination.
3. You can also file with your state's civil rights or education agency, which may have its own deadline.

The 180-day limit is in 34 C.F.R. 100.7(b). Since July 2026 the Department no longer enforces disparate-impact claims under Title VI.

What Happened at Spring Valley High

The 16-year-old in the Spring Valley High School math class in Columbia, South Carolina, had been using her phone and personal email during class, according to the local prosecutor’s later report (HuffPost). She refused when her teacher and an administrator told her to leave. The school resource officer, Deputy Ben Fields of the Richland County Sheriff’s Department, told her she was under arrest for disturbing the school. A classmate’s video showed him flipping her backward in her desk and throwing her across the floor (WACH).

Her classmate Niya Kenny stood up and shouted, “Isn’t anyone going to help her?” She was arrested too. She was handcuffed, charged as an adult with disturbing a school, and taken to jail, and days later she left school and enrolled in a GED program (ACLU). Sheriff Leon Lott fired Fields within days (WIS).

In September 2016, the local prosecutor, Solicitor Dan Johnson, declined to charge Fields and dropped the charges against both students. His report said nearly all the witnesses, including the girl’s guardian, thought Fields had acted appropriately (WACH). What made both arrests possible was the law. South Carolina’s “disturbing schools” statute made it a crime to “act in an obnoxious manner” at a school.

The law was used thousands of times. More than 9,500 students were referred for prosecution under it in under six years ending in March 2016, some as young as 7. From 2015 to 2020, Black youth were charged with disorderly conduct for school incidents at about 7 times the rate of white students. A change that removed students from the disturbing-schools law took effect on May 17, 2018, and on February 22, 2023, a federal appeals court held the old law and the disorderly conduct law unconstitutionally vague as applied to students (Carolina Youth Action Project v. Wilson).

How a Classroom Problem Becomes a Court Case

Most of the decisions that push a student out are made by adults using their own judgment. A statewide study of nearly 1 million Texas secondary students found that only 3% of disciplinary actions were for conduct where state law required a suspension or expulsion. School officials chose the rest (CSG Justice Center). In Charlotte, researchers found that principals, who have wide discretion over discipline, were the biggest driver of differences in suspension rates between schools (Education Next).

How a school discipline incident can reach juvenile court

1. 1 In class An incident Often a low-level one: defiance, a phone, lateness, a dress code violation, or a fight.
2. 2 Same day Removal from class A teacher or principal sends the student out, or calls the school resource officer.
3. 3 Same day to weeks Suspension or expulsion The student loses days of school. Removals past 10 days trigger more process for students with disabilities.
4. 4 Same day Referral to police or arrest The officer or school refers the student to law enforcement, sometimes under a school-disturbance or disorderly conduct law.
5. 5 Weeks to months Juvenile or adult court A prosecutor decides whether to file charges. Students 18 and older go to adult court.

Sources: Carolina Youth Action Project v. Wilson (4th Cir. 2023), describing South Carolina's referral process; CSG Justice Center, Breaking Schools' Rules (2011); 34 C.F.R. 300.530.

Each step is a separate choice by a different adult, which is why the same behavior can end with a conversation in one school and an arrest in another. Removal also compounds. In the Texas study, only 40% of students disciplined 11 or more times graduated, and nearly half of them had contact with the juvenile justice system.

Who Is Removed From School

The scale is national. The Civil Rights Data Collection is a mandatory count from every public school district, 17,704 of them in 2021-22, the latest year the Education Department has published (CRDC).

Black students and students with disabilities are arrested at school far out of proportion to their numbers. Black students were 15% of K-12 students and 33% of those arrested at school, 2.2 times their share. English learners were arrested at a lower share than their enrollment, which shows the pattern is not the same for every group.

Share of students enrolled Share of students arrested at school

1. Black students 15% → 33% (+18 pts)
2. Students with disabilities (IDEA) 14% → 25% (+11 pts)
3. Students with disabilities (Section 504 only) 4% → 5% (+1 pts)
4. American Indian or Alaska Native students 1% → 2% (+1 pts)
5. English learners 11% → 8% (−3 pts)

0%10%20%30%40%

Share of all K-12 students vs. share of students arrested at school, 2021-22

Group	Share of students enrolled	Share of students arrested at school	Change
Black students	15%	33%	+18 pts
Students with disabilities (IDEA)	14%	25%	+11 pts
Students with disabilities (Section 504 only)	4%	5%	+1 pts
American Indian or Alaska Native students	1%	2%	+1 pts
English learners	11%	8%	−3 pts

Source: U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights, 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection, A First Look (January 2025), pp. 23-24. Shares are of all K-12 public school students; groups overlap.

The gap starts before kindergarten. Black children were 18% of public preschool enrollment and 38% of the preschoolers suspended out of school. Preschool children with disabilities were 23% of enrollment and 74% of those expelled. In K-12, Black boys were 8% of students and 22% of those suspended out of school (CRDC).

Police are a routine part of school life for many of these students. About 44% of public schools had a sworn officer or security guard in 2021-22, and 2.0 million students attended a school that had an officer or guard but no counselor.

What the Research Found About Suspensions and School Police

The strongest studies compare similar students who ended up in different schools by chance, and they find that harsher discipline and more police raise arrests later. They also find limits. School police reduced some fights in one national study but did not prevent gun incidents, and restorative practices cut suspensions without raising test scores.

The Charlotte study is the closest thing to a direct test. When the district redrew school boundaries in 2002, similar students landed in middle schools with different habits. A school one standard deviation stricter handed out about 16% more days of suspension, and its students were 3.2 percentage points more likely to be arrested and 2.5 points more likely to be incarcerated as young adults (NBER). The effects on Black and Hispanic boys were the largest.

The police studies point the same way on discipline and split on safety. In Texas, federal grants for school police raised middle school discipline 6%, driven by low-level offenses (Weisburst). Nationally, adding an officer raised out-of-school suspensions by 35% to 80% and police referrals and arrests by 10% to 50%. It also cut fights and threats by about 30% in models with controls, and raised the count of reported gun incidents, which the authors read as better detection (Sorensen et al.).

Federal School Discipline Policy in 2025 and 2026

The federal government has moved from asking schools to examine racial gaps in discipline to telling them not to weigh race at all. An April 2025 executive order called the earlier approach “discriminatory and unlawful ‘equity’ ideology” and ordered new guidance (Federal Register). The guidance came in August 2026.

Where Federal School Discipline Rules Stand

As of September 26, 2026

• Executive Order 14280, Reinstating Commonsense School Discipline Policies Agency action

  Signed April 23, 2025. Ordered new discipline guidance within 30 days and a report on every discipline investigation since 2009. (source)

• Justice Department Title VI rules Agency action, final rule

  Disparate-impact liability removed, effective December 10, 2025. Intentional discrimination is still covered. (source)

• Education Department Title VI rules Agency action, final rule

  Disparate-impact provisions rescinded, effective July 24, 2026 (91 FR 46733). (source)

• Guidance on Pupil Discipline and Compliance with Title VI Agency action

  Issued August 18, 2026. Tells schools to stop considering race in discipline; the Department opened investigations in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and Milwaukee the same day. (source)

• Ending PUSHOUT Act (H.R. 2738, S. 1338) Proposal

  Introduced April 8, 2025. Referred to committee with no further action. (source)

• South Carolina disturbing-schools and disorderly conduct laws Final ruling, as applied to students

  Students removed from the disturbing-schools law in 2018. The Fourth Circuit held both laws vague as applied to students on February 22, 2023. (source)

Source: Federal Register; govinfo; Foley Hoag; Congress bill status

The change matters because of how the old rules worked. A disparate-impact claim did not require proof that anyone meant to discriminate, only that a policy fell much harder on one group without a good reason. With those provisions gone, families can still file complaints of intentional discrimination, and the Civil Rights Data Collection still records who is suspended and arrested. The Civil Rights Act explainer covers the wider disparate-impact fight.

What Reduces Pushout

The best-tested alternatives cut suspensions, but none is a cure on its own. In Pittsburgh’s randomized trial of restorative practices, suspensions fell, mostly in elementary grades, and the gap between Black and white students narrowed. Teachers rated their schools’ climate higher. Suspensions for middle schoolers and arrests did not change, and middle-grade test scores fell (RAND).

Other changes target the steps in the pipeline directly:

• Ending suspensions for minor behavior. The Ending PUSHOUT Act would fund schools that stop out-of-school suspensions in preschool through grade 5 except for serious physical injury, and in every grade for defiance, lateness, truancy or dress code violations (H.R. 2738).
• Narrowing the laws police use. South Carolina took students out of its disturbing-schools law in 2018, after years of referrals under it.
• Counselors where there are officers. About 2.0 million students attend schools with an officer or guard and no counselor. The Counseling Not Criminalization in Schools Act would shift federal school police money to counselors, nurses and social workers (H.R. 2739).
• Following disability law. Manifestation reviews and behavior plans exist so that students with disabilities are not removed for behavior their disability causes.

The Debate Over School Discipline

Both sides want safe classrooms. They disagree about whether removing students makes classrooms safer and about how to treat racial gaps in the numbers.

The case for firmer discipline, as the April 2025 executive order puts it, is that when schools focus on “aggregate school discipline numbers rather than the specific circumstances,” they “become less safe.” The order cites a 2018 federal commission finding that some schools “ignored or covered up” misconduct to avoid racial disparities in their data, and it argues that discipline decisions belong to teachers and principals (Federal Register).

The case against heavy use of suspensions and school police rests on the studies above. Similar students sent to stricter schools were arrested more as adults, and adding officers raised suspensions and arrests most for Black students and students with disabilities. Researchers who study the pipeline argue that when so much discipline is discretionary, the gaps reflect choices adults make, not only differences in behavior.

What the Pipeline Label Leaves Out

• Not every suspension leads to prison. Most suspended students are never arrested. The research measures higher odds, not a certain path.
• Behavior differences are real in some schools. The Charlotte and police studies compare similar students to separate the effect of the school from the effect of the student, which simple disparity counts cannot do.
• School police do some good in some studies. The national study found fewer fights with an officer present, and more weapons detected.
• The newest national data is from 2021-22. Schools were returning from pandemic closures, and the Education Department has not published a later year.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the school-to-prison pipeline real?

Research that compares similar students finds harsh discipline raises later arrests. In Charlotte, a 2002 boundary change sent students from the same neighborhoods to different middle schools, and those assigned to stricter schools were more likely to be arrested and incarcerated as young adults. Because the boundary change, not the students, decided where they went, the difference came from the schools.

What is zero tolerance in schools?

Zero tolerance means a school or district policy that sets a predetermined punishment for a listed offense. The federal Gun-Free Schools Act requires states that take federal school money to have a law expelling for at least a year any student who brings a gun to school, though a district’s chief administrator can modify that case by case in writing (20 U.S.C. 7961). By 1996-97, most public schools also had zero tolerance policies for violence, tobacco, alcohol and drugs, a federal survey found.

Can police question my child at school without me?

It happens. In J.D.B. v. North Carolina, police questioned a 13-year-old at school without anyone contacting his guardian, and the Supreme Court held in 2011 that a child’s age, when officers know it or should, counts in deciding whether a student was in custody and owed Miranda warnings. Your child has the right to stay silent and to refuse to write or sign a statement, and the ACLU advises students who choose to talk to ask for a lawyer, parent, or guardian first.

Are school resource officers the same as school police?

Under federal law, a school resource officer is a career law enforcement officer with sworn authority, assigned by a police department or agency to work with schools. The federal civil rights survey of schools counts sworn officers employed by a police department, a school district or the school itself, and counts security guards, who patrol and monitor school grounds, separately.

What You Can Do

1. Read your district’s discipline code and ask the school board how many students it suspended and referred to police last year, by race and disability. Districts report these numbers to the Civil Rights Data Collection, and the CRDC site shows each school’s data.
2. Ask your school board whether offenses like defiance and lateness can lead to suspension, and whether your schools have counselors as well as officers.
3. Tell your state legislators to limit suspensions for young children and minor behavior, and to review laws like disorderly conduct statutes that police use at school. Find them at Open States.
4. If your child is disabled and keeps being sent home, ask for a manifestation determination and a behavior plan in writing. Your state’s parent training and information center can help for free.
5. Ask your members of Congress to cosponsor the Ending PUSHOUT Act with the letter below.