Discipline for your NC public school student could vary by district. Here’s how
Student discipline policies and enforcement in North Carolina public schools can vary based on district. Experts say that’s by design.
When it comes to school safety and discipline policy, every district in North Carolina is beholden to what’s in state law. Other than that, there’s a lot of leeway.
The State Board of Education puts forward a policy, and local boards have the ability to modify it to meet the needs of their districts, said Karen Fairley, director of the NC Center for Safer Schools. That flexibility, she said, is a good thing.
“I think that each local school board should have the autonomy to put out their own policies based on the fabric of their community. So, it is going to differ because the local board should be focusing on the constituents in their area,” Fairley said. “What’s done over in the east will look different than what’s done in the western part of the state, and that’s the way it should be.”
There are some laws governing student discipline policies. For example, NC law:
- Requires school principals to recommend a 365-day suspension for students who bring firearms or destructive devices on school property
- Prohibits expulsion or suspensions of more than two days for truancy or tardiness
- Orders school boards to limit the use of long-term suspension or expulsions to address “serious” offenses that either threaten the safety of others or could “substantially disrupt the educational environment”
- Requires school districts to publish their discipline policies and make them available to each student and their parent at the beginning of the school year
Charlotte-Mecklenburg, Union County discipline
CMS has its own policies pertaining to discipline and anti-bullying. The district uses a five-level framework for categorizing behavior and responses. Appropriate disciplinary responses for each level, with level one being the least severe and level five being the most severe, are outlined in the code of student conduct.
For example, the maximum possible recourse for a dress code violation is a level one response, which could include things like contacting parents, a verbal warning or temporary social restriction from peers. Cheating on an assignment could elicit a level one or level two response, according to the CMS Code of Conduct. A level two response could include removal from extracurricular activities or a short-term suspension, among other things.
School leaders ultimately decide which responses to use on a case-by-case basis.
School principals can decide the length of short-term, in-school or out-of-school suspensions. But they must follow certain protocols that include “investigating the situation, providing the opportunity for an informal hearing with the student and providing written notice of suspension,” according to the CMS Parent-Student Handbook. A short-term suspension is any suspension of 10 days or fewer.
Long-term suspensions, which are much more rare in CMS, are determined by the superintendent.
Meanwhile, Union County Public Schools has a different system for prescribing discipline. It’s partially determined by the age of the student and whether it is the first offense or not. For example, for using “abusive language and gestures,” an elementary school student could receive zero to three days of suspension for a first offense or one to five days for a subsequent offense.
Inequity
Some inequity persists between student groups when it comes to discipline. NC data show. Black students, students with disabilities, male students and students identifying with two or more races had the highest rates of in-school suspensions per 1,000 students among the various student subgroups during the 2023-24 school year.
Racial disparities in student discipline are not unique to North Carolina. Nationwide data show Black students are four times more likely than their white peers to be suspended from school, despite multiple studies indicating Black children are not more likely to misbehave than white children.
“There is still much work to be done to address the race, gender and disability disparities,” State Superintendent Mo Green said in a news release in February.
In CMS, Black students accounted for 67% of short-term suspensions in the 2023-24 school year, despite only being 34% of district’s the total student population. By contrast, white students accounted for 6% of short-term suspensions and 27% of the district’s overall student population.
This story was originally published June 18, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
