Committee advances bill to expel students who assault school staff
Sen. Matt Nunn, R-Sadieville, testifies on Senate Bill 101 before the Senate Education Committee on Thursday. A high-res version is available here.
FRANKFORT — Legislation requiring local boards of education to expel students if they intentionally cause physical injury to school employees passed unanimously Thursday in the Senate Education Committee.
Senate Bill 101, sponsored by Sen. Matt Nunn, R-Sadieville, would mandate that local boards of education expel students for a minimum of 12 months when they become aware of an incident in which a student in grades 6–12 intentionally harms a teacher or other school personnel on school grounds or at a school function.
“This bill requires each local school board of education to adopt a policy requiring a minimum policy of expulsion of 12 months for a student in grade 6 through 12, who is determined by the board to have physically assaulted, battered, or abused school personnel without just cause of provocation on school property or at a school function under the board’s jurisdiction,” Nunn said.
The bill would also require school employees to report any student-on-teacher assault incident immediately to law enforcement and create penalties for any school employee who fails to do so.
“From the people that I have talked to, this is an underreported problem,” Nunn said. “And so I wanted to make sure that there was an important reporting mechanism in this legislation.”
Sen. Danny Carroll, R-Paducah, expressed concern about punishing school staff with misdemeanors for failing to report such incidents.
“I am troubled by the thought that a teacher or other staff member, someone takes a swing at them, and they decide not to report it, and are then charged with a misdemeanor. I’m wondering if it would not be better to leave that up to school district policy, since this falls under their policy on setting penalties for not reporting things,” Carroll said.
In response, Nunn said he did not include the penalty provision lightly but believed it was necessary to ensure the problem was addressed.
“From what I am hearing, I think we have to have some sort of penalty to encourage and ensure these reports occur. If there were lower penalties… I would have started there, but I started at the lowest place,” he said.
Sen. Lindsey Tichenor, R-Smithfield, asked whether the bill’s omission of students in grades K–5 would prevent school districts from creating expulsion policies for younger children.
Nunn clarified that school boards would still be permitted to expel K–5 students for aggressive actions against school staff if they chose to do so, though the bill would not mandate such a policy.
SB 101 now heads to the full Senate.