The Nebraska Legislature’s Education Committee heard testimony Tuesday on a bill allowing teachers and school staff to physically restrain disruptive students and remove them from classrooms without fear of being disciplined.
The bill was introduced by committee chairman Senator Dave Murman, who said it’s needed to protect teachers and students – pointing to news reports of violent behavior by elementary aged students in several instances across the state that he said left several teachers “traumatized and looking for a new line of work.”
The Nebraska State Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, backs the bill with lobbyist and former teacher Isau Metes recounting her own experiences while a teacher in Lincoln.
Meles said she’d physically intervened in a fight between students even though she knew she could face discipline for doing so. While she wasn’t, she said she knows of teachers who have been fired for breaking up fights.
Similar bills have failed in the Unicameral in recent sessions, in large part over concerns raised by civil liberties advocates that Black and Native American students and those with disabilities would be more likely to be removed from classrooms.
Murman’s bill specifically prohibits the use of physical contact to inflict pain or as punishment for a student’s behavior, but American Civil Liberties Union of Nebraska attorney Rose Godinez told the senators it’s still a bad proposal.
Godinez said the answer to disruptive students is “more funding, resources and training” for teachers – adding that it’s “disheartening to see another misguided bill that could risk kids’ well-being and educational opportunities.”
She added that the ACLU “will oppose this bill every step of the way and will advocate alongside parents, guardians and teachers to protect students’ rights.”
More than a dozen other opponents testified as well, including representatives of the Omaha Public School District and the Nebraska Council of School Administrators, with several criticizing the bill as “too vague” and encouraging the use of physical intervention in Nebraska schools.
if anyone does their research, its the Blacks and the Native Americans who are the most violent and more likely Gang Bangers.
That’s ridiculous! And whites most likely to be public shooters! Where you get your research