I am a Colorado youth fellow with the National Center for Youth Law. Since graduating from Denver Public Schools in 2017, I have worked with education justice and violence-prevention nonprofits.

Recently, I learned about HB 23-1291, a bill that would reform Colorado expulsion law to keep more kids in school and make expulsion procedures fairer to students and families.

Expulsion creates “opportunity youth,” students disconnected from school and work. Opportunity youth are more likely to move into the school-to-prison pipeline – an outcome that doesn’t make anyone safer.

Every young person in Colorado has a constitutionally protected right to receive a public education. Even so, some educators and school boards oppose this legislation. I believe that the real issue at stake is values. Teachers are there to teach – it’s their passion – and I understand that they value safety, but as students we value our safety just as much. Safety means having the freedom to make mistakes and get a chance to learn from them without missing a year or more of education.

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In Colorado, four out of five expulsions are for students of color, although students of color make up only 44% of our student population. That’s not fair. If we want all young people to succeed, we cannot politicize access to education based on identity rather than values.

We need more unity and more solution-based programming, rather than harsher disciplinary action. That is how we can make schools and communities safer. During my time as a community organizer, I have seen firsthand that prevention and intervention programming and alternative curriculum in schools are better solutions than expulsion. We should invest in alternatives like these that keep students in school and on track to graduate.

Let’s live up to our values; let’s pass HB 23-1291.

Isaiah Jiron

Denver

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