Students rehabilitate after expulsion

BY MIKAYLA STEARNS
[email protected]

Just three weeks ago, sophomore Michael Soto and junior Ash Cayabyab and waited in foyer of the of the Roseville Joint Union High School District office with their families. They hoped to present cases in favor of their return to Roseville High School.

“We all just waited there and they called us in one-by-one and we stood in front of this big group of people,” Soto said. “They read our papers and how we did, and our transcripts and our grades so they could say, ‘Hey, I think you can do it,’ and they approved us to come back.”

Soto, who faced expulsion for sales and drug offenses on campus, left RJUHSD in April until the beginning of the spring term.
After his third suspension for drug-related offenses last winter, Cayabyab met district expulsion.

“I was expelled around Casaba last year, so like around a year I was gone,” Cayabyab said.

Both Soto and Cayabyab negotiated the terms of their expulsions with director of personnel services Brad Basham when they presented their cases before their Jan. 12 deadline.

According to Basham, this expulsion experience occurs for around an average of 20 students per year.

“I share with them the evidence and the charges against them and what I try to negotiate at that time is generally what we call a stipulated expulsion, meaning that it’s clear to the student and their family that there is evidence to support their expulsion,” Basham said. “So instead of going to a formal hearing, the parents agree to the conditions of the rehabilitation plan and they accept the expulsion.”

The legal length of expulsion maxes out at one full calendar year.

“It could be for one calendar year, and I’ve had some that have been for the length of just one semester,” Basham said. “The length is determined by the nature of the actual violation that led to the expulsion, as well as past history.”

The one-year maximum on expulsion prevents a student from having their educational rights violated, RHS principal David Byrd says.

“You can’t expel someone forever,” Byrd said. “Removing someone from a school has to be balanced with every California students’ right to an education.”

An expulsion from RJUHSD is matched with alternative educational opportunities, the most common being attendance of the continuation school Pathways for iCARE.

The district offers iCARE as a rehabilitation program for expelled students. One way for students to fulfill the requirement of iCARE is to attend the Youth Resource Center, a facility in Rocklin that functions like a high school.

“Attendance to YRC would be court appointed, probably through a judge or county probation,” Basham said. “Probably because they are serving time for a sentence or committing a crime of some kind. It is generally when they have convicted a crime and a judge has placed them there.”

Both Soto and Cayabyab attended YRC for iCARE during their expulsion from the district.

“YRC is pretty secluded and it’s like very secure,” Soto said. “To go in, they have to wand you to make sure there’s no dangerous objects. And if you’re on probation then you have to put your hands behind your head and they pat you down.”

Expelled students prove their readiness for readmission with consistent attendance to YRC, credit recovery and markedly improved behavior.

“After I got in trouble, before I had to go to YRC, I had to go to a meeting with Brad Basham and I had to be expelled until at least December,” Soto said. “There are certain requirements I had to meet. I had to get 30 credits in one term, I had to have 95 percent attendance and I just had to have good behavior and stuff.”

YRC aims for a low teacher-to-student ratio to optimize the kind of individual attention a rehabilitating student needs, whether that be for anger management counseling, decision-making classes or substance abuse classes.

On top of specialized counseling and courses specific to the student’s offense, drug offenders must pass extra requirements.

“If it was a drug-related or alcohol-related offense, then students also have to produce a negative drug test prior to being readmitted,” Basham said.

Cayabyab felt comfortable while completing his rehabilitation program in YRC’s environment.

“It’s just cool knowing that you’re going to school with a bunch of mess-ups with similar struggles and you can help each other out, trying to get stuff done,” Cayabyab said.

According to Byrd, the type of offense and previous disciplinary history determine each individual expulsion.

“You don’t just want a one size fits all, everybody gets the same type of thing. I think you want to be able to treat things on a case-by-case basis,” Byrd said.

Alternative to a stipulated expulsion, students and parents can contest the expulsion in a more formal process, similar to a trial. Students are put in front of a panel of administration from sites in the district but their own.

“The parent and the student get the opportunity to present their case,” Basham said. “That could include witnesses, that could include an examination of the evidence, sometimes attorneys are involved. But then that panel will make a recommendation on whether or not to move forward with the expulsion.”

Site admin make recommendations for expulsion, which goes to Basham and then to the school board.

“We make a determination on whether we are going to uphold that recommendation or if we are going to go a different route, which could lead to a student returning to the school site on a probation contract or an involuntary transfer to our continuation high school Adelante, or it could be that we move forward with the expulsion recommendation,” Basham said.

The school board members are the only ones with the authority to expel or to readmit students from the district.

“The board does not need to readmit a student that has not completed their rehabilitation plan. There have been students that have been expelled from the district for over a year and have not met the conditions of their rehabilitation plan and continue to go to school outside of the district,” Basham said.

Even though Byrd feels “more detached” from the expulsion process in RJUHSD than he did while working at Elk Grove Unified School District, he feels the last resort of expulsion results in success stories for most kids in the district.

“I have seen probably more successes come out of an expulsion than I have miserable failures,” Byrd said. “More often than not, it gets the kids to come back with a different attitude and frame of mind, and they recognize what they are missing when they aren’t here.”