CDF-Ohio’s report shows during the 2024-2025 school year, Black, non-Hispanic students were four and a half times more likely than White students to experience exclusionary discipline in Ohio.
Media Contact: John Henry, jhenry@childrensdefense.org, CDF Media Relations Manager, 708-646-7679
COLUMBUS, OH—The youth advocacy organization Children’s Defense Fund-Ohio (CDF-Ohio) has released a new report investigating the use of exclusionary discipline in state public school systems. The report, titled “The 2025 State of School Discipline: The Quiet Undoing of School Discipline Reform in Ohio,” examines how recent policy shifts threaten the progress Ohio has made toward advancing the well-being of the young people in its care.
In recent years, many Ohio school districts have implemented disciplinary and educational policies that address nonacademic barriers to learning and promote students’ overall health and development. This shift reflects a growing consensus among education experts that academic achievement is inseparable from physical health, mental well-being, safety, and a sense of belonging. However, some school districts still rely on punitive, zero-tolerance disciplinary frameworks that use exclusionary practices like out-of-school suspensions and expulsions.
Research indicates these methods are largely ineffective and often harmful. Recent policy shifts, including 2023 state budget changes and proposed revisions to OAC 3301-35-15 of the Ohio Administrative Code governing elementary and secondary education, have undermined Positive Behavioral Intervention Supports and could worsen disciplinary issues.
Read the Report: The State of School Discipline 2025: The Quiet Undoing of School Discipline Reform in Ohio
The use of exclusionary discipline remains widespread in Ohio, with more than 8,600 students in pre-K through third grade receiving expulsions or out-of-school suspensions during the 2024-2025 school year. These punishments are often applied unevenly across student populations and frequently stem from minor or subjective infractions, such as “disruptive” or “disobedient” behavior. Our report found:
- In the 2024-25 school year, the state recorded 10.2 incidents of suspension or expulsion per 100 students. These practices disproportionately affected marginalized students. Black, non-Hispanic students were four and a half times more likely than White students to experience exclusionary discipline.
- Students who are economically disadvantaged also proved to be roughly twice as likely to face suspensions or expulsions as their peers, and students with disabilities experienced exclusionary discipline at nearly six times the rate of students without disabilities.
“For two decades, Ohio schools have moved away from failed discipline policies that fuel inequality and harm school culture,” said CDF-Ohio State Director Dr. John Stanford. “However, many districts have yet to fully adopt the CDC’s ‘Whole Child’ framework, which is an evidence-based approach that integrates health and social services into the core mission of public school systems. To improve outcomes for all students, we must renew our commitment to these supports, strengthen school climates, and ensure that exclusionary discipline is used only in the rarest circumstances.”
Additionally, CDF-Ohio recommends that state lawmakers adopt several solutions to decrease the use of exclusionary discipline. These include reaffirming and fully funding the SAFE Act to limit such discipline to serious and violent offenses. Lawmakers should also expand investment in community and school-based supports, such as increasing access to community learning centers, expanding school-based health services and Medicaid billing, and establishing universal free school meals, to address nonacademic barriers to learning.
CDF has long examined the adverse impact of school suspensions on children in America. Following its 1974 report, Children Out of School in America, the organization released School Suspensions: Are They Helping Children? A Report the very next year. Both reports analyzed the negative effects of suspension on individual students while highlighting how these disciplinary practices often serve as a mechanism for racial discrimination in the classroom.