The Maryland State Board of Education is expected to take action later this month on proposed student disciplinary regulations that the Washington County local school board is concerned will affect local control, according to a report in the Herald Mail.  The Chair of the Maryland Association of Boards of Education (MABE) Legislative Committee expressed concern about the costs associated with the proposed changes and language that limits local choices in specific disciplinary cases. MACo often works with MABE to defend local school board and county decision-making in education.

As reported by the Herald Mail,

“The main concern is really the concept that the State Board of Ed decided to not only set standards for student discipline regs, but to tell us how to manage those standards,” Washington County Board of Education Vice President Donna Brightman said. “My feeling is that they overstepped … their authority in doing that,” said Brightman, who is chairwoman of the Maryland Association of Boards of Education’s Legislative Committee. . .

Brightman expressed particular concern over one area of the regulation, regarding return of an offending student to school.

Local board members have expressed concern about language in the proposed regulations that could be interpreted to mean that a student offender, after completing discipline, has to be returned to the school where the incident occurred and the victim still might be in that school. “In the past, the victim had precedent. In other words, why would we move the victim … to a different school?” Brightman said

For more information, see the full story from the Herald Mail.