Bill puts students with disabilities at greater risk

Today the state Assembly passed AB 69 which mandates reporting of any incident that occurs on school grounds to local law enforcement, and mandates schools hire armed school resource officers if too many incidents are reported.

In Wisconsin, 14.5% of students have disabilities, but those students represent over 34% of our state’s school referrals to law enforcement. Wisconsin currently refers students with disabilities to law enforcement at a higher rate than any state other than Virginia.  
Many children with disabilities act out or exhibit behaviors to communicate. Those behaviors are frequently criminalized and used to remove students with disabilities from school.
“Students with disabilities need to be in school to learn,” said Beth Swedeen, Survival Coalition co-chair. “We should be moving students toward the path to graduation and jobs in the community, not setting them up to go from school to prison.” Read full press release here.