Connecticut Students With 'Emotional Disturbances' Face High Rate Of Suspensions

It’s still hard for Keyanna Tucker to talk about what happened to her when she was six.

“I was molested,” Tucker said. “I didn’t know how to cope with it … I didn’t know what was going on, but I knew it wasn’t right. So I started becoming a bully.”

Tucker, who is now 22, recalled other problems. Her father was incarcerated, which was another layer of stress. And as time went on, her behavior slowly got worse.

Eventually, school officials at Simpson-Waverly School, a pre-K-to-grade-eight school in Hartford, told her she had an “emotional disturbance,” a federal special education classification for students with mental health and behavior problems. And the disturbance she lived with led to problems in the classroom. Over her years in Hartford public schools, Tucker was suspended more than two-dozen times and expelled twice.

Read more: https://thepublicsradio.org/article/connecticut-students-with-emotional-disturbances-face-high-rate-of-suspensions