Stop disciplinary hearings from disrupting learning
Each year, Georgia’s schools suspend 118,000 children for violating school rules. These children wait weeks out of school, without access to class lessons, for a disciplinary hearing to determine if they committed the violation. When school officials determine the child did not commit the offense or that a serious punishment is not warranted, already overburdened teachers must reintegrate and catch-up returning students.
Georgia Appleseed’s policy team found children and society at large suffer significant harm from missed school days while children wait for a disciplinary hearing, including learning loss, increased drop-out rates and economic costs.
To keep kids learning in school, Georgia Appleseed drafted Senate Bill 169, which requires timely disciplinary hearings and ensures that students have course materials while awaiting a hearing. We’ve worked with state Sen. Chuck Payne and other partners on this bipartisan bill, which passed the Senate unanimously.
We urge Georgians to call their legislators and encourage them to pass SB 169. No one benefits when children go without learning and miss their shot at success.
ERIC FISHER, CHAIR OF THE BOARD, GEORGIA APPLESEED CENTER FOR LAW & JUSTICE
Georgia Appleseed Center for Law & Justice is a nonpartisan nonprofit keeping Georgia’s most underrepresented children in school with the supports they need and out of the juvenile justice system.
Medicaid purges deny children healthy start in life
RE: Gov. Brian Kemp’s spokesman Garrison Douglas’ comments on Medicaid (“Lawmakers demand answers on Medicaid,” AJC, March 18).
Mr. Douglas,
I was so appalled by your response to the fact that nearly 150,000 children have lost Medicaid that I felt compelled to email you. To say that Georgia isn’t in the “top ten” largest losses is more than dismissive. It denigrates the value of the necessity for children to have a healthy start in life.
Shame on you and politicians who refuse to expand Medicaid and end all the punitive barriers to getting access to medical care.
RITA VALENTI, CLARKSTON
