Featured Discussion 26

Leaving Them Out? The Expulsion of Preschool Children with Behavioral Problems

There is now extensive evidence that children's experiences during the first five years of life can be critical for their later development. However, there is also growing concern among families and professionals about the exclusion of young children with behavioral difficulties from current systems of early care and education.

A recent analysis of national data on expulsion rates at state-funded prekindergarten1 substantiates these concerns.

Expulsion rates: Three key findings

This new research by the Yale University Child Study Center found that, based on data from 40 states:

1. Preschool children were expelled more often than elementary and high school children.

2. There was marked variation in expulsion rates in different states.

3. Expulsion rates were predicted by demographic characteristics.

Preschool children were over three times more likely to be expelled when compared with children in grades K to 12. Expulsion varied considerably across states, ranging from a rate of 4 per 1,000 students in the ten lowest states to over 10 per 1,000 students in the ten highest states. The likelihood of expulsion was predicted by age, gender, and race. Five year olds were expelled almost twice as often as four-year olds and three times as often as three-year olds. Boys were more than four times as likely to be expelled as girls, and African American children were about twice as likely to be expelled as European American children. Research that tracks young children's development demonstrates that access to high quality early care and education can have long-term benefits to children, to families, and to society. These include improvements in children's social and emotional competence, and greater success at school and at work. Benefits to society as a whole occur over the long term due to greater economic self-sufficiency and lower crime. However, the study's findings indicate that some of the most vulnerable children are being excluded from these opportunities at a very early age. Another cause for concern is the absence of support for families when their child is dismissed from a program. One survey of child care centers2, although restricted to one state, found that only about half of the participating centers provided a referral for the family. Although some successful models do exist for the inclusion of children with emotional and behavioral problems3 in early childhood settings, it is clear many children and families are not receiving the help they need.

Please share your experiences and views by writing in the comment box below.

Some Questions to Consider

• What is your view on the expulsion of pre-school children?

• Do you know a child who was expelled from preschool? Did this have to happen or should other options have been explored?

• What changes are required to address this problem of exclusion from preschool?

• Have you had experience of care or early education that worked well for a child with behavior problems or mental health needs?

As always, we look forward to hearing from you!

Your thoughts…

Comments:

Why are these discussions focusing exclusively on the preschool environment or the teachers as the root of the problem? It is true that center-based preschool care is not an optimal environment for every child, but what about the home environment? In my experience- that has been key.

We operate a high quality preschool made up of small class sizes, very low ratios and qualified,nurturing long-term teachers. We have access to and use a wide variety of professional supports, such as behavioral consultants & early intervention screening. We are located in a fairly affluent area. We use DECA and go through an average of 20 continuing ed credits per teacher per year- yet we have had children that we've had to dismiss from our program because they were a danger to the other children.

This has been an absolute last resort and every time it has been because the parents of the child have failed to recognize the severity of the behavior and/or have not made an effort to work with the teachers in a consistent approach to eliminating the behaviors.

I'm referring to daily incidents of severe bites, hitting, children being kicked in the head and threatened with scissors. We have to protect ALL children in our care and yes, sometimes that means removing a child who poses a sincere threat to the health and well-being of the others. Preschool should not be traumatic.
We've had an educated, professional parent make jokes about her 5 year old biting other children and then taking him for an ice cream to "talk" about it and telling me that it is considered developmentally appropriate. We've had a parent that has been too busy playing golf to spend any of the 1:1 time with her child that was a major part of the plan set up through the behavior consultant. Even after a month of frequent check -ins from the teachers to follow-up, daily notes home, etc. We've heard every excuse in the book.

This is a heartbreaking reality for us and the only children we've ever had to say goodbye to are those who had parents that just wouldn't step up to the plate and do their part.

I'm not saying that their aren't teachers that contribute to the problems, don't communicate well with parents, don't know how to handle stress- they certainly exist, too.

But I also think that until preschool is viewed as "real" school, valued for the critical role it fills and the teachers given adequate recognition and compensation, parents won't view it as a true partnership- sadly, to the detriment of the children. Posted Thursday, March 5, 2009 at 03:02 PM

As a transitional kindergarten teacher, ECSE teacher and a Head Start teacher in Iowa I have never had a child expelled for bad behavior. There are children who have had referrals made to specialists for behavior but never expelled. I have had a few parents who removed the child from pre school but that was of their own choosing. Posted Sunday, February 15, 2009 at 01:26 PM

That is crazy to expell pre-school children for behavioral problems. They are pre-schoolers. I believe they should be treated just like the other children, they will just have to have a little more help in some areas. I am going to teach preshool and no way am I going to expell a pre-schooler because they may need a little more help. As a teacher you have to have the heart and the PATIENCE for children. Posted Monday, January 28, 2008 at 07:47 AM

My 3.5 year old was just expelled from preschool after 12 hours of face time with the teachers. They site "extreme behavior problems". He is a child with a disability, he receives speech services, and thus has had extensive evaluations to qualify and thus, only qualifies for speech. There was one conversation initiated by me regarding how he was doing after 4 classes. She stated she had some concerns and told me what they were. Nothing that I would not expect from a 3 year old in a new setting. The teacher stated she would observe him more and get back with me in a week. Our next conversation was that the board had met and he had been expelled. There was no opportunity for us to determine the root of a problem, develope and action plan and work to correct the issues that the teacher felt were inappropriate for her classroom. This has left us feeling we are failures as parents to our child and leaving us minimal alternatives other than to wait until he is 4 to get on another waiting list for preschool. As he has been at the same daycare for 3 years, his providers there are outragged as well. They deliver a total of 7 child to that same preschool, a few of whom parents are on the board and took part in the decision. Tomorrow, will be the 1st day he cannot go. How do you explain to him that everyone else can get in the van except him. The unprofessionalism of this preschool has left us devastated. If we don't know what to work on, how can we fix it. We are all educators: parents, teachers, daycare providers and if those units do not work as a cohesive unit for the good of the children, what are we raising our future generation to be. Posted Sunday, October 16, 2005 by tjcole@bluefrognet. at 08:13 AM

Due to ever increasing numbers of referals to our child & adolescent MH center of children under6, many of whom have been removed from pre-schools, we had to develop expertise and programs to deal with this. We started with The Incredible Years program for parents of identified preschoolers as well as for teachers, day care providers, and in-home providers.We then added the DINA program in an inner-city special needs pre-school; this year we are providing this early intervention to 2 Head Start classrooms. We then added the DECA progam last year and expended this three-fold this year.We also reorganized our outpatient counseling program in such a way so as to have a special under 6 unit for working with families in the most flexible way we can.We will provide other consultation services to pre-schools interested in looking at their learning environments in order to assist in maintaining some of the more "challanging" young ones in the normalized setting. All of this activity is in an attempt to enhance school readiness in populations which have extremely high risk factors for early school failure, drop-out, etc. We see what we are doing as only a part of what is needed for these children and families and are always scrambling for funds to make even these attempts viable. Posted Thursday, October 6, 2005 by Harvey Kayne, Ph.D. D&E Counse at 08:41 AM

As a former teacher and director of several early childhood services (in Australia)there are times when children do need to be excluded from the child care setting - especially if the child's behaviour is threatening and they can cause serious injury to themselves, others or damage property -remember you duty of care is to ALL children and families involved in the service.

I developed and implemented policies for exclusion of children - as a very last resort. We ensured that the best interest of the child and the other children in care were carefully weighed up. We involved external support services (incl. psychologists, doctors, social workers etc) and developed behaviour modification plans to assist the teaching/caring staff, the child's family and the child's peers. If the family refused to seek help and intervention failed, then exclusion was (regretable)necessary.

If the family received help/support then we worked with the family for as long as it took to engage the child in (developmentally) appropriate behaviour.

I also believe that not every child thrieves in one type of early childhood setting - sometimes large group care can be detrimental to a child while a family care setting is more appropriate - i think early childhood teachers should recommend these options to families rather than battling through years of frustration etc. Posted Monday, October 3, 2005 by Liz at 10:15 PM

Expulsion is exclusion. As an Early Childhood Educator for many years and now as a Mental Health Consultant I rail against time outs. I see them as excluding the child from the very place they've shown us they need to be (with support!) Expulsion is giving up on a child where they most need someone to believe in them-that they CAN succeed! I've made a mental note to request that I be involved any time expulsion is considered (Though I'm confident that I would already be involved and that our program is unlikely to go there anyway!) Posted Monday, October 3, 2005 by Gil at 08:36 PM

As a result of a recent expulsion of a child in Kindergarden, I have a grave concern about the teacher's ability to recognize esculating behaviors and provide appropriate interventions thus minimizing and perhaps preventing a crisis from occuring. Interventions can be very basic. It seems many children are being set up to fail. Posted Monday, October 3, 2005 at 07:55 AM

I think one of the reasons that kids get kicked out of preschool more often than in later years is because more are served in private settings where there is no mandate. This is a troubling thought when we see trends toward relying on the private sector more to provide education overall (eg through vouchers and other privatization mechanisms). With the ability to skim off the "profitable" children, and often with no need to conform to standards for accountability such as NCLB (kids from failing schools get vouchers to go to private schools that re not required to demonstrate "adequate yearly progress" or show evidence of closing the achievement gap(, private schools skate free. In the meantime, support for public schools is undermined as many families leave for private schools-- public schools and kids who are potientially "unprofitable" will be left increasingly adrift with less funding and more challenges. Posted Thursday, September 29, 2005 at 09:16 AM

The expulsion of young children for behavioral problems is often a symptom of organizational and systems issues. Expulsion often occurs when preschool staff do not have access to the continuum of supports that would enhance their capacity to prevent or ameliorate those behaviors that disrupt other children and daily routines. The knowledge base exists regarding how to build child care center capacity to serve all children, including those with emotional or behavioral challenges. However, we have not yet established an infrastructure that incorporates strategic approaches that embed these strategies within community child care settings. There are examples of promising practices, such as organization-wide training and mentoring, that can be incorporated into community child care systems. Systematic networking strategies among providers is also an effective approach to building a learning community of providers. Posted Wednesday, September 28, 2005 by Constance Lehman at 12:08 PM

Pre-school expulsion is very real and it has a huge impact on a child's developing identity. We screened 486 pre-school children this past year for problematic behaviors with the TABS screener. Teachers reported 46% of those children with behavior concerns. Children are dealing with incarcerated parents, parent suicide, fractured families, parental substance abuse and many other situations. Our approach has been universal with teaching all pre-schoolers social skills, empathy training and problem solving while providing a nurturing and stuctured environment. Posted Wednesday, September 28, 2005 by Butte Co. California at 09:32 AM

Children with troubling or difficult behavior can be included in child care and pre-K settings with the effective use of mental health consultants. When consultants work closely with administrators, staff, and parents, classroom environments can be modified, good relationships built, and children assisted to be ready for the challenges of the school system. In a recent survey child care administrators at the state level have testified to the effectiveness of consultation programs. Investing money in improving early childhood program quality, and in providing these essential consultation services is one of the best things our society can do. Posted Wednesday, September 28, 2005 by Eileen Brennan, Models of Incl at 09:23 AM

I would like to see subsidized child care classrooms for children with social and emotional delays. Trained teachers and behavior technicians with low adult child ratios would benefit these young children who have experienced stress or trauma and lack the skills to control their impulses. Posted Wednesday, September 28, 2005 at 09:03 AM

In Florida, we had a program for young children to attend, until the funding was cut by our governor. Since the closure of these programs there have been several children that have slipped through the cracks, been given a diagnosis of an emotional problem and passed into ESE classes and kept from being mainstreamed into regular classes. These children often get bullied, ridiculed and they then become juvenile delinquents or turn to illegal drugs. Their self esteem is typical low. Unless the parents are very active in their children's education or they know of programs available to help their child (they have to pay for this service) they never receive the education they so deserve. The way I look at it is that we are failing the children. The state lottery was supposed to make enormous deposits for our schools and that has proven to be the fact. We fund all sorts of roads, condo's, parks, state buildings, jails, etc....why can't we fund the programs needed for our children. There has been a shortage of funding that operates our public libraries and this is another area that is needed to help our children. I work in child welfare and we often get abuse reports on these children. We work hard at providing services for these children and even pay for some services for children at risk. Why can't the elected officials see this is an epidemic? Posted Wednesday, September 28, 2005 at 08:30 AM

We have experienced several expulsions from preschool and I doubt that these children will be considered SED when they attend k-12. These are kids who are too active, or with variations in how they have developed. Montana Posted Wednesday, September 28, 2005 at 06:55 AM

Iowa has a referral program for children who are preschool and would be considered at risk. Area Education Agencies provide schooling and support services to the parents of these children.

Transitional Kindergarten is another learning
enviornment prior to being placed in kindergarten. This program provides an opportunity for 4 and 5 year olds to gain skills they would not have had otherwise. Posted Wednesday, September 28, 2005 at 06:36 AM

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Buck, K. A. & Ambrosio, Robert J. (2004). Children with severe behavior problems: A survey of Texas child care centers's reponses. Early Education Journal , 31(4), 241-246. Back to text

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