Promoting Inclusive and Equitable Futures: The Trauma Informed Practices for Preschool (TIPPS) Project aims to increase public awareness of the preschool to prison pipeline. The preschool to prison pipeline refers to the increased likelihood that children who experience exclusionary discipline in school will be involved in the juvenile and criminal justice system.

This document describes common factors that can cause a child to experience exclusion, expulsion, or suspension.

Factors That Can Involuntarily Push a Child into the Preschool to Prison Pipeline

School Staff Members’ Unconscious Bias

• Black preschoolers are suspended much more than other preschoolers. Almost twice as often as you would expect based on how many black preschoolers there are. When ECE staff do not understand their own bias about race, they sometimes punish children of color more and worse than  white children.
• Preschool children with disabilities get expelled much more often than preschoolers without disabilities. 24% of preschool children have a disability, but 62% of preschool expulsions happen to preschoolers with disabilities. When ECE staff do not understand disability, they sometimes punish children with disabilities more and worse than children without disabilities.
• ECE staff can be biased toward children with certain disabilities who show challenging behaviors. They can think a child is just misbehaving, when really their challenging behaviors are because of their intellectual, emotional, sensory, or other disabilities. Staff may not want to give the child the support they need or give them unfair punishments.

Center-Imposed Limitations to Access

ECE centers try not to enroll preschoolers with disabilities. Thinking these preschoolers will need extra help, centers may not want to provide the teachers or services to do so. Centers may also worry about safety, like a child running out of a building onto a busy street.

Little Support in the Classroom

Not having enough teachers in the classroom makes it hard to care for each child. Teachers may have difficulty responding to children who are struggling with social, emotional, and behavioral needs. More children may be excluded or expelled.

Teachers’ Stress

A teacher can feel upset when they do not know how to help a child who is having a hard time in the classroom. The stress of helping so many children who are having a hard time can make it difficult for teachers to respond positively. The child may get even more upset, and the teacher may feel even more stressed. The stressed teacher may take stronger actions, like having the child move to a different spot in the room, having them leave the room, or calling the parent to pick up the child. When this happens again and again, it may lead to the center suspending or expelling the child.

Missing Children’s Skill Gaps or Differences

When a child’s skills gaps are not identified and responded to, the child may use behaviors to say, “I am having a hard time”. The teacher may respond to the behavior instead of seeing the skill gap behind the behavior.

Example: A child may have an auditory (sound) sensory processing problem and struggle with managing multiple sounds. In their classroom, one student is screaming, another student is crying, and the teachers are stressed and talking loudly about what to do. A preschooler with auditory (sound) sensitivity would get completely overwhelmed and may start hitting other students to communicate, “This is too much for me to handle. I am overwhelmed and upset.” Instead of seeing the child is getting too much input at once and needs a break to feel better, the educators only respond to the hitting behavior.

References

Caiozzo, C. N., Yule, K., & Grych, J. (2018). Caregiver behaviors associated with emotion regulation in high-risk preschoolers. Journal of Family Psychology, 3 2(5), 5 6 5.

Gilliam, W. S., & Shahar, G. (2006). Preschool and child care expulsion and suspension: Rates and predictors in one state. Infants & Young Children, 19(3), 2 28-24 5.

Mondi, C. F., Rihal, T. K., Magro, S. W., Kerber, S., & Carlson, E. A. (2022). Childcare providers’ views of challenging child behaviors, suspension, and expulsion: A qualitative analysis. Infant Mental Health Journal, 43(5), 695–713. (https://doi.org/10.1002/imhj.22005)

Pennsylvania Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Pennsylvania Code 3280.52 Group Childcare Homes, PDF on PA Code and Bulletin website (https://www.pacodeandbulletin.gov/secure/pacode/data/055/chapter3280/055_3280.pdf)

U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights. (2022). Focus on Student Discipline: Suspensions and Expulsions in Public Schools—PDF on Civil Rights Data website (https://civilrightsdata.ed.gov/assets/downloads/Suspensions_and_Expulsion_Part2.pdf)

For help with a reference, email: iodres@temple.edu.