Evidence shows that students experiencing homelessness get disciplined at higher rates than students who were not. Jennifer Erb-Downward, senior research associate at Poverty Solutions, believes schools should take housing status into consideration when disciplining students.
“If what you’re seeing in a child is a behavior manifesting from underlying trauma being triggered, then disciplining them in the usual way — suspension and expulsion — is not going to change the behavior and will only remove the child’s ability to participate in school,” she said.
