Kids with disabilities face off-the-books school suspensions

By MEREDITH KOLODNER and ANNIE MA
The Hechinger Report/Associated Press

Advocates say schools increasingly are removing children with disabilities from the classroom because of behavior issues related to their disability but not recording the actions as suspension. The practice is known as informal removal, which advocates say amounts to a form of off-the-books, de facto denial of education that evades accountability. Because the removals aren’t recorded, there’s no way to quantify how often they happen. But the assistant secretary for the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, Catherine E. Lhamon, says the practice has “taken hold in a way that is dangerous for students and needs to be addressed.”