On May 7, the Alabama House unanimously passed bill SB157, also referred to as the Teachers Bill of Rights, which lawmakers argue is aimed at addressing unruly students . The bill, once signed into law by Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, would take effect during the 2024-2025 school year. Although the bill received bipartisan support, some Democratic legislators questioned if the bill was the answer to how to extend protections to teachers.
As the Alabama Reflector reports, the vote followed a spirited debate by the Alabama House Education Policy Committee in April. In that meeting, Vic Wilson, the executive director of the Council for Leaders in Alabama Schools, expressed concern over what he termed a “two-strikes” policy contained in the bill. Randy Smalley, a Tuscaloosa County School Board member and a district director for the Alabama Association of School Boards, raised concern that the bill would strip control from local procedure and is in conflict with pending student due process bills the association is in favor of passing.
During the House vote, Rep. Thomas Jackson (D-Thomasville) said that he believed some of the problem comes from teachers who don’t respect their students. “Now, I worked in elementary school, and there were some young teachers in there who didn’t tolerate little boys, Black boys, I’m going to use the term, but the Black teachers didn’t have no problem with those boys.”
Another Democrat, Rep. Patrick Sellers, (D-Birmingham) argued that taking God out of the school system is part of the reason for the disciplinary issues in Alabama schools and seemed to call for a return of corporal punishment. “Y’all might not want to hear what I got to say. When we took God out of school, part of your problem arrived. When you take the paddle out of the hand of the teacher, part of your problem arrived.” Sellers continued, “I have to hear this conversation every single day from my wife because she deals with the discipline in her school. And I tell her everyday you need a resident butt-whooper in your school to handle discipline.”
