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Comment by cherryteastain | Hacker News Reader

Surely expelling more effective from the school's perspective.

I've mentioned this above, but I know of a new pupil in one of my local schools who has recently seriously injured another pupil and attempted to strangle one of the teachers (she had to take time off work due to stress).

He is only seven and has just been expelled from another school.

The school, and every other student.

That moves the problem elsewhere, it doesn't solve it.

It returns the problem to the source: the child's parents or guardian.

Generally true, but the school's core protection responsibility is for its own students and staff - not the rest of the world. And the school's authority and resources are even more constrained.

At least in some places, school systems have "special" schools or other programs for the kids who they'd rather keep out of contact with the general student population.

Surprisingly hard to expel a child, particularly in the more privileged schools … far more satisfying from the perspective of an educator if they can address the issue.

This very much depends on where you live, your school, and the commitment of the parent body.

I went to a school decades ago that was both small, and highly effective at explusion. I can't say that this successfully led to improved academic outcomes however.

>>Surprisingly hard to expel a child, particularly in the more privileged schools

In my experience - it's the reverse. Expensive private schools were quick to expel students because as much as they liked the money they liked having good academic results they could boast about much more. It's the basic run of the mill public schools that can't expel anyone because the student has to be in education somewhere and they might be the only school in the catchment area, so there are no good alternatives.

The public schools are loathe to expel (unless there's an agreement in the district that one school is a dumping ground) - midrange private schools are quick to expel to protect the rest, but the highest end private schools will figure out a way to not expel, because the money is sooooo good.

If it's a private school, then they expel pupils pretty rapidly.

Of course, none of this addresses why there are behavioural problems in the first place. A shrink alone may not cut it, especially if there is a wider toxic culture in the school which helps create bullying.

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