In 2012, after child advocates spent years trying to reduce punitive suspensions in schools, Massachusetts passed sweeping education reforms under Chapter 222, kickstarting a longstanding policy shift away from exclusionary discipline methods.

The law came as the nation moved away from the Zero-Tolerance policies of the 1990s and toward efforts to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline. Chapter 222 established new due process and data reporting requirements for school districts regarding the discipline and exclusion of students. The underlying principle was to make exclusionary methods like suspension a last resort and require those who are removed from the classroom to continue receiving access to learning materials.

Around the time the law was passed, many out-of-school suspensions were for non-criminal, non-violent, non-drug-related offenses, and that broad, discretionary, catch-all category was where some of the greatest racial disparities existed. Students of color were removed from school for minor offenses at disproportionately higher rates than white students, as were students with disabilities compared to their peers.

In 2022, the state took it a step further by passing Chapter 177, requiring school districts to attempt alternative methods like restorative justice, counseling, and mediation before resorting to exclusionary discipline.

Nearly 15 years after that initial policy shift, out-of-school suspensions are falling. From 2018 to 2025, they dropped from nearly 28,500 statewide to less than 22,000, according to data reported by school districts and collected by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE). In that same timeframe, the number of students receiving any form of disciplinary action in Massachusetts schools decreased by nearly 24 percent. In-school suspensions declined as well.

Yet, while only impacting a small percentage of students, emergency removals — a mechanism allowing school administrators to immediately remove a student from school due to severe behavior for up to two days before the child receives a legally-mandated hearing — have substantially increased, from nearly 1,500 in 2018 to more than 3,900 in 2025. The number of emergency removals dipped during the 2020-2021 school year but has increased every year since 2022.

The state’s 26 Gateway City school districts — which are responsible for educating some of the most disadvantaged student populations in Massachusetts — reported more than half of all emergency removals in 2025, despite making up just 28 percent of the state’s total public school population. In those districts alone, emergency removals collectively grew by 78 percent while suspensions decreased by 23 percent.

What’s behind the increase? The answer isn’t simple.

The trend has racial justice and education advocates sounding the alarm, suggesting that school districts may be circumventing suspensions (and the alternative discipline methods they are legally required to employ) and instead opting for emergency removals as a quick fix to behavioral issues. Those removals are amounting to lost learning that advocates say is ultimately contributing to the state’s staggering racial and socioeconomic achievement gaps.

“We’ve had all of these changes, but there’s not a lot of teeth,” said Jenny Chou, executive director of the Children’s Law Center of Massachusetts, a legal services and advocacy group representing families and children. “The more you’re not in school, the worse off you are, and now we have this whole system where it’s seemingly justified to put you out.”