2020 Arkansas Student Discipline Report

This report examines student discipline in the Arkansas public schools. Using ten years of de-identified student- and infraction-level data from 2010-11 to 2019-20 provided by the Arkansas Department of Education, our research identifies trends and a number of key student outcomes related to student discipline in the Arkansas public schools. This work builds upon prior editions of this report.1 We assess compliance with recent legislation, passed in 2017, limiting suspensions and expulsions for elementary-aged students. In addition, we continue to report on 2013 legislation banning the use of out-of-school suspensions for truancy. While the data are only limited to the infractions and consequences reported by schools, and while we do not estimate causal effects of any policies or programs, this work includes some key findings relevant for educators and policymakers in the state. An important caution for interpretation is that the 2019-20 reports are much lower than typical, largely due to the closure of Arkansas schools beginning in mid-March of 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic