Qld students with a disability suspended at alarming rate

More than half of all Queensland state school suspensions handed down to kids in 2020 were to students in this at-risk cohort.

Queensland’s most vulnerable children are getting suspended from school at higher rates than their peers, with students with a disability accounting for about half of all state school suspensions.

Figures disclosed following a recent Right to Information request have revealed that of the 63,984 one to 10-day suspensions handed out in 2020, 31,382 – or 49 per cent – were to a child with a disability, including 8500 to an Indigenous child with a disability.

About 19 per cent of Queensland state school students were recorded as having a disability on the federal register, the Nationally Consistent Collection of Data on School Students with Disability.

The over-representation regarding suspensions between 11 and 20 days was similar, with 46 per cent of the 2461 suspensions involving a child with a disability.

Children with cognitive disabilities accounted for more than half of all Queensland state school students with a disability.

Depending on the manifestation of their condition, this could include children with autism, intellectual disabilities and ADHD.

The Right to Information request, which was lodged by Queensland Advocacy Incorporated, also revealed 420 students with a disability were excluded in 2020, while a further 106 had their enrolments cancelled.

RMIT University School of Education senior lecturer in inclusion David Armstrong was not surprised by the troubling statistics, and called for more research into methods to reverse the trend.

“(The over-representation) is getting worse, in all the states, which suggests there are pressures within the education system pushing schools to exclude students,” he said.

“Students with a disability are less likely to be seen as ones who will perform academically, and more likely to be seen as disrupting their classmates.”

Children with autism, intellectual disabilities and ADHD are at high risk.

Mr Armstrong, who gave evidence as an expert witness at the Disability Royal Commission on the subject, said research on the long-term consequences for students who faced suspensions was “pretty horrendous”.

“They are more likely to wind up in the criminal justice system, more likely to have mental health issues, less likely to complete formal education, have a much lower participation in the job market,” he said.

“It’s made even more tragic by the fact many kids with intellectual disabilities often exhibit aggressive behaviours, because they don’t understand what’s going on.

“They may say inappropriate things, or may be bullied and respond by hitting the bully back.”

Testimonies to the Royal Commission regarding the suspension of Queensland students included one regarding a child who had been subjected to four, 10-day suspensions in a single year for “relatively minor behavioural issues”, often following a “meltdown”.

A Department of Education spokesman said the decision to suspend or exclude a student was not taken lightly by principals.

“Suspensions and exclusions are used as a last resort, and principals closely monitor disciplinary absence data to inform how interventions, supports and consequences are managed at their school,” he said.

The spokesman also said the department’s Student Code of Conduct provided information about how to respond to the particular learning needs of all students.

“It also outlines the responsibility of staff to consider individual circumstances when responding to inappropriate behaviour, such as disability, mental and wellbeing, home environment and care arrangements,” he said.

Mr Armstrong said while broadly it was “getting worse”, some schools were bucking the trend.

“Some are doing really well, and we need to look at what they are doing,” he said.