Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

There were 1,050 re­port­ed cas­es of stu­dent sus­pen­sion as a con­se­quence of school vi­o­lence across the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem for the Sep­tem­ber to De­cem­ber 2025 pe­ri­od, but no stu­dent was ex­pelled dur­ing that pe­ri­od, says Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath.

Min­is­ter Dowlath gave the in­for­ma­tion in the Sen­ate yes­ter­day, re­ply­ing to queries from Op­po­si­tion PNM Sen­a­tor Melanie Roberts-Radg­man.

He said there has been a sig­nif­i­cant re­duc­tion in sus­pen­sions and in­ci­dents of vi­o­lence in schools deemed as high risk, where the “Po­lice in Schools” ini­tia­tive has been im­ple­ment­ed.

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Roberts-Radg­man had called for the num­ber of stu­dents sus­pend­ed or ex­pelled as a con­se­quence of school vi­o­lence. She al­so sought the mea­sures im­ple­ment­ed to re­ha­bil­i­tate those stu­dents sus­pend­ed/ex­pelled from and/or placed in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem dur­ing the pe­ri­od.

Af­ter giv­ing the num­ber of 1,050 sus­pen­sions over the pe­ri­od - and no ex­pul­sions - Dowlath said, “The Min­istry does not treat sus­pen­sion as ar­bi­trary pun­ish­ment. Sus­pen­sion is used where be­hav­iour threat­ens the safe­ty, or­der and prop­er func­tion­ing of the school en­vi­ron­ment, but it is gov­erned by clear pro­ce­dures, due process and pro­por­tion­al­i­ty.”

He added, “The frame­work is pro­vid­ed by the Na­tion­al School Code of Con­duct and the School Dis­ci­pline Ma­trix, which re­quire that schools act firm­ly, but al­so fair­ly, and with a view to stu­dent rein­te­gra­tion.

“This Gov­ern­ment’s po­si­tion is clear: vi­o­lence in schools will not be nor­malised, ex­cused or ig­nored. At the same time, we recog­nise that dis­ci­pline must be ac­com­pa­nied by re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion, in­ter­ven­tion and pre­ven­tion.”

Ac­cord­ing­ly, Dowlath said stu­dents who were sus­pend­ed, or oth­er­wise iden­ti­fied as be­ing at risk of con­tin­ued be­hav­iour­al dif­fi­cul­ties, were re­ferred to the Min­istry’s Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices Di­vi­sion for tar­get­ed sup­port.

In more se­ri­ous cas­es, he said the Min­istry al­so ap­plies case man­age­ment, mon­i­tor­ing and re­fer­ral mech­a­nisms, in­clud­ing re­fer­ral to spe­cialised ser­vices and rel­e­vant ex­ter­nal agen­cies where re­quired.

“So, the ap­proach isn’t sim­ply to re­move a stu­dent from school and leave the mat­ter there. The ob­jec­tive is to cor­rect be­hav­iour, pro­tect the wider school pop­u­la­tion and re­duce re­peat in­ci­dents. And that is ex­act­ly why this Min­istry has act­ed,” he said.

The Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter added, “We have re­viewed and strength­ened the Na­tion­al School Code of Con­duct so that schools now have a clear­er, more mod­ern, and more con­sis­tent frame­work for deal­ing with in­dis­ci­pline and se­ri­ous mis­con­duct, while still pre­serv­ing due process and the best in­ter­ests of the child.”

He al­so cit­ed the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the “Po­lice in Schools” ini­tia­tive in high-risk sec­ondary schools.

On whether there have been any changes in the num­ber of sus­pen­sions seen in high-risk schools where the “Po­lice in Schools” ini­tia­tive has been im­ple­ment­ed, Dowlath said, “Yes, def­i­nite­ly; es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing crit­i­cal pe­ri­ods of break time, lunch time and af­ter schools, there has been a sig­nif­i­cant re­duc­tion in sus­pen­sions and in­ci­dents of vi­o­lence.”

The Min­is­ter added, “So the dif­fer­ence is, this Min­istry isn’t mere­ly talk­ing about school vi­o­lence; this Min­istry is act­ing to con­front it. We’re tak­ing a bal­anced but firm ap­proach. Firm where the safe­ty of stu­dents and staff is threat­ened and sup­port­ive where in­ter­ven­tion is need­ed to help a young per­son re­turn to a bet­ter path.”