CHARLESTON, W.Va. –Discipline in schools will soon look a little different when the school discipline bill officially goes into effect during the 2025-2026 school year.
Legislators passed Senate Bill 199 during the 60-day regular legislative session, and Governor Patrick Morrisey signed it into law on April 12. The bill went into effect on July 2nd; however, teachers will begin implementing it when school resumes.
The bill outlines how K-6th grade teacher can address student behavior and modifies provisions related to student disorderly conduct that disrupts the educations process.
Senate Education Chair and main sponsor of the bill, Amy Grady, says that the bill addresses the primary concern across all schools in the state.
“Prior to passing this bill we sent out a survey, the legislature sent out a survey to teachers, the teachers union sent out a survey and so did the Department of Education and that survey asked teachers what is the number one issue you would like to see the legislature deal with and the one thing that came back on all of those survey’s was student discipline,” Grady said on MetroNews Midday Tuesday afternoon.
Grady explained some schools already implement practices outlined in the bill, and now these practices will be universal throughout the school system.
In addition to stating that teachers will have sole authority when students are in their classroom, the bill also outlines what actions teachers can do when a student is being disruptive. Instead of suspending the student- which would take them out of the classroom- the teachers will have the authority to exclude any student they believe is guilty of disorderly conduct and given over to the school’s principal.
Once students are with the principal, they must meet with a school counselor or a behavioral interventionist before they are allowed to reenter the classroom.
Grady said the Department of Education is currently working on a brochure that will outline the policies teachers and administrators can follow to ensure clarity in handling incidents.
“So, they will all know exactly what to follow, you know a lot of times a technique or something that is exactly the same for every school doesn’t work but, in this case, you need something that everybody can follow and there’s no question on how I handle this,” she said.
The bill also states that if a student’s behavior persists, they can be sent to an alternative learning center or partner with a licensed behavioral health agency. This, in turn, has allowed counties to make more of these centers in order to help with discipline.
Grady says that these new methods of discipline, especially the ones in the bill, have evolved with the times. She noted that older methods, like paddling, don’t work for every student which is what the bill seeks to address.
“You have to evaluate and look at each kid individually to see what works for them,” she said. “And that’s what this bill does, it helps us to identify problems that kids might have and set them up for success and that’s what we ultimately want to do for every kid in our system.”