SENATE EDUCATION COMMITTEE

STATEMENT TO

SENATE, No. 1154

STATE OF NEW JERSEY

DATED:  DECEMBER 7, 2020

     The Senate Education Committee favorably reports Senate Bill No. 1154.

     In January 2014, the United States Department of Education, in collaboration with the United States Department of Justice, issued a school discipline guidance package to assist states and schools in improving school discipline practices and ensuring that such practices are nondiscriminatory.  This bill directs the New Jersey Department of Education to develop school discipline guidelines to assist local school districts and charter schools in enhancing school climate and improving school discipline policies and practices, including ensuring that discipline practices are applied in an equitable and nondiscriminatory manner.  The school discipline guidelines developed by the Department of Education under the bill are required to be consistent with the federal school discipline guidance package, including the January 8, 2014 Dear Colleague Letter on the Nondiscriminatory Administration of School Discipline and the January 2014 document entitled “Guiding Principles: A Resource Guide for Improving School Climate and Discipline.”