How to survive suspension

REBECCA WALSH compiles a parent's guide to coping when a child is sent home from school.

What would you do if your child was suspended from school?

Last year there were 5108 suspensions nationwide. Most of those were for drugs (1553 cases) or continual disobedience (1216). In 803 cases the suspension was for physical assault on another student.

So what happens when a student is suspended or stood down? What rights do the student and his or her family have and what types of behaviour can parents watch for to try to prevent a situation from reaching that stage?

A stand-down is one option schools have for managing behaviour before resorting to suspension.

It involves the formal removal of a student from school for a specified period, usually two or three days.

Students might be stood down for anything from smoking to continual disobedience.

Tom Robson, president of the Secondary Schools Principals Association, says stand-downs provide a cooling off period for both the student and school. But they can create difficulties for parents, especially if they both work, as they struggle to find supervision for their child.

In most cases the school will set some work for the student. Parents can also request a meeting with the school.

Suspensions, seen by schools as a last resort, involve the formal removal of the student from school until the board of trustees decides what action to take. That could range from lifting the suspension to expulsion.

The board must meet to hear the case within seven school days of the suspension.

In most cases contact would have been made between the student's family and the school before a suspension. There may have been detentions, counselling or anger management courses.

What signs should parents watch for?

Mr Robson says some of the first indications that a student is heading for trouble are truancy and being late to school. "Another one is when, suddenly, you notice there is no homework and there's a desperate urgency to be somewhere else."

"There will be different influences from the ones that were going on before. The person can find themselves out of their depth very quickly when they move into a different circle of acquaintances."

Peer pressure is a major issue for young people and most adults "forget how it works", Mr Robson says.

"Inevitably it leads to conflict between what the student wants to do and what their parents' values might be. The real test is for parents to hang in there and not change."

When a student is suspended the school must provide the family with information, produced by the Ministry of Education, on the process.

John Hancock, a lawyer at Youth Law, an advocacy service based in Auckland, says the student and family are entitled to have someone present to speak and listen on their behalf at the board hearing.

The family are also entitled to disclosure 48 hours beforehand of all information to be presented at the hearing.

If the student is excluded or expelled and the family are unhappy they can ask the board to reconsider. If it refuses the family can appeal to the Ombudsman and, failing that, seek a judicial review in the High Court, which is an expensive and lengthy process.

Coming to terms with discipline

* Stand-down is the formal removal of a student from a school for a specified period, usually two to three days. It can be for no more than five school days in a term or 10 days in a year. After a stand-down students return to school.

* Suspension is the formal removal of a student from a school until the board of trustees decides the outcome at a suspension meeting. The board might decide to lift the suspension with or without conditions, extend it or, in serious cases, exclude or expel the student.

* Exclusion means the formal removal of a student aged under 16 from the school. The principal must try to get the student into another school within 10 school days.

* Expulsion means the formal removal of a student aged 16 or over from school.

Parents may be interested in last year's statistics:

* 2.4 per cent of students were stood down (16,921 cases in total).

* Common reasons for a stand-down were continual disobedience (4195 cases), physical assault on other students (3890) and verbal assault on staff (2717).

* 0.7 per cent of students were suspended. In 85 per cent of cases they returned to school.

* The most common reason for a suspension was drugs, including substance abuse (1553), continual disobedience (1216) and physical assault on other students (803).

* About two-thirds of students stood-down and suspended were aged 13 to 15.

* 74 per cent of stood-down or suspended students were boys.

* 47 per cent of suspended students were Maori, but Maori make up only 21 per cent of the population.