By Kate Neuschwanger and Maddy Larson
There are many children who are at risk of entering the school-to-prison pipeline, especially children with disabilities. According to an article titled “School-to-Prison Pipeline” written by the Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund, the school-to-prison pipeline includes “the policies and practices that push our nation’s schoolchildren, especially our most at-risk children, out of classrooms and into the juvenile and criminal justice systems”. Students with disabilities are more susceptible to entering the school-to-prison pipeline for a variety of reasons, one of which is through a component of their disability that manifests in their behavior. Interviewee Steven Aleman, Senior Policy Specialist at Disability Rights Texas, elaborates more on the subject.
“It (the behavioral component) manifests itself in behaviors and actions that sometimes do need to be physically controlled by a teacher or by school staff”.
If educators can understand why a student behaves a certain way, they can learn to avoid specific prompts and triggers. Avoiding prompts and triggers, however, is not a long-term solution to keeping disabled students away from the school-to-prison pipeline. Incorporating transition planning earlier into the students’ curriculum is a suggested solution that has proven to be effective. The early incorporation of transition planning will help disabled students be more prepared for life on their own after graduation, and set up a clear plan for them to follow. There are many different aspects of life that are covered in transition planning, including how to purchase a home, file taxes, and apply for a job. Transition planning ensures that students are informed about things that they will utilize in their everyday lives after graduation.
Although transition planning has helped students with disabilities avoid the school-to-prison pipeline, there are still some limitations when it comes to the utilization of the transition plan. One of the biggest limitations to this solution is the possibility of a disabled student not having someone to help them stick to their plan after high school. Ultimately, it is their choice whether or not they want to follow their transition plan, and if they choose to go against it, it can land them in prison or in some sort of trouble, and cause them to enter the pipeline despite the numerous efforts to avoid it in the first place. However, transition planning for disabled students has generally done more good than some of the other suggested solutions. In the interview with Aleman, he explains how the state of Texas made an amendment to their education code in regards to adding more to transition planning.
“Our state law puts an emphasis now…to help students be self aware of their advocacy skills and be able to be better practiced in their adult decision-making skills”.
Educators and the state of Texas are already taking adamant steps to ensure that disabled students are getting all of the help that they need, and then some. We are constantly progressing in order to encourage disabled students to stay on the right track and avoid the school-to-prison pipeline.
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