Kylie Lang on high suspension rates for students with disability, amid questions over inclusive schools
It’s not ideal for children to be out of school for any length of time, but it is important our kids understand consequences of actions, writes Kylie Lang.
If the figures are correct and 64 per cent of students facing suspensions have a disability, then mainstream schooling isn’t for them.
I would also question what constitutes a “disability” – a genuine medically diagnosed condition or bad behaviour stemming from a lack of discipline at home?
Educators tell me that often it’s the latter – and their working lives are unduly burdened because of it.
However, the bleeding hearts weighing in on the matter are suggesting principals lighten up.
They argue these kids should be allowed to remain in class.
What, so they can continue to disrupt the learning experience of others? No thanks.
This week, government data revealed there were more than 71,400 suspensions or expulsions in Queensland state schools from term three in 2024 to term two in 2025 – and 43,000 were for students with a disability. While most incidents resulted in short-term suspensions of up to 10 days, hundreds of students were sent home for weeks.
Admittedly, it’s not ideal for children to be out of school for any length of time, but it is important they understand consequences of actions.
If they’re permitted to carry on with a warning, or any other type of wrist slap, their behaviour will not improve and the rest will pay for it.
Queensland Advocacy for Inclusion chief executive Matilda Alexander says the proportion of students with a disability facing suspensions has risen from 49 percent in 2023 to 64 percent now.
By Alexander’s reckoning, this shows “systemic failure in disciplinary approaches for disabled students”.
No. What the data reveals is that inclusion is not working.
Despite promises from previous Labor governments, which excelled at being woke, mainstream teachers were never upskilled in how to educate students with disabilities.
They were expected to work it out for themselves. So accusing educators of failing in their disciplinary approaches is grossly unreasonable.
As one Courier-Mail reader put it: “The integration religion imposes too much on teachers ... they cannot be experts in every special need. Integration is a cheap way of sweeping special needs under the carpet.”
There are currently 46 special schools in Queensland, and the Crisafulli Government has committed to building six more.
It has copped criticism for this, particularly from Australia’s Disability Discrimination Commissioner Rosemary Kayess, who says the government is “blatantly ignoring” the benefits of inclusive education.
Kayess has written to the Premier, saying “segregated schooling leads to segregated lives for many people with disability and this is unacceptable”.
“If we want a society where everyone is included and where everyone feels they belong, then we need to be phasing out ‘special schools’, not building more of them.”
Kayess references the 2023 Disability Royal Commission – a mess of an affair which saw commissioners divided over the outcome, which was that special education be phased out by 2051 and that no new special schools or classes be built from 2025.
Talk about killing parental choice.
While I understand the arguments for inclusion, branding anyone who says it is not working well as discriminatory is like saying people who voted no in the voice referendum are all racists.
Besides, is it not discriminatory against children without disabilities to have so much class time taken up by children with disabilities?
Australia Special Education Principals’ Association president Matthew Johnson says it is “ridiculous” to expect a special needs student to succeed in a class of 30.
“There’s a reason why our students aren’t in the mainstream system. They require the one-on-one (education),” Johnson says.
Special ed teachers agree.
One, who is a parent of a child with neurological and physical impairment, recently posted online that “it would have been a nightmare to have her at a mainstream school”.
Another said for inclusion to be a reality, every classroom would need at least one highly trained teacher aide to cope with students’ unique needs. Fat chance of the happening.
Forget playing the convenient discrimination card.
Common sense dictates that principals should be supported in making independent disciplinary decisions, and if the percentages keep climbing, as seems likely, then inclusion needs a rethink.
Kylie Lang is Associate Editor of The Courier-Mail
kylie.lang@news.com.au
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Originally published as Kylie Lang on high suspension rates for students with disability, amid questions over inclusive schools
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