Across Massachusetts, a balance sought to maintain classroom order while helping students learn

A Massachusetts mother is speaking out after she says her son was bullied by his classmates and unfairly disciplined by school administrators. The 5 Investigates team has taken a deeper look into the battle over how to maintain classroom order while keeping every student on track to learn.Jessica Davis said her son, whose identity we've agreed to keep private due to safety concerns, endured tough times while he was in middle school at Middleborough.Davis said students at John T. Nichols, Jr. Middle School, made homophobic comments and shouted racial slurs at her son, in addition to repeatedly physically bullying him. "His anxiety was off the scales," Davis said. "He spiraled into a depression."According to Davis, the situation came to a head when her son was in the eighth grade."The day that the kid, the student tried to fight him, he was called a (racial slur) and he was trying to bait him."Davis said after the fight school administrators informed her that her son was going to be suspended from school for 90 days. "Do you think that the school was really trying to get to the underlying issue?" 5 Investigates' Brittany Johnson, asked. "No, absolutely not," Davis responded.During a disciplinary hearing, Davis was able to prove that her son was not the aggressor in the fight, and his suspension was reduced to five days. The Middleborough superintendent wouldn't comment on this case specifically but did say the district updated its bullying prevention and intervention plan, implemented legal training for administrators, and partnered with an organization for anti-bullying training.The question of who gets to decide what discipline is fair is one every school district faces."Suspending just suspends the problem," Leon Smith, attorney, and executive director of Citizens for Juvenile Justice, told 5 Investigates. Citizens for Juvenile Justice represents students who are fighting what they say are heavy-handed school administrators."I've seen young people face expulsion for hitting a student playfully with a water bottle for poking a kid with a paperclip," Smith said. He believes suspensions and expulsions should be options reserved for "certain serious offenses."Otherwise, Smith and others believe in helping students learn from their mistakes, including using what's called "restorative justice" where students have to make amends for the harm their behavior caused. "We have to understand that punishment alone is not going to get it done," said Smith. "We have to meet these underlying needs of young people as well."Similar concerns led the Massachusetts legislature to pass the School Discipline Law 12 years ago which required schools to make sure suspended or expelled students keep learning.Two years ago, the legislature added more regulations, including expanding due process for students, enhancing parents' rights and setting rules for schools to follow before suspending anyone.The escalating concerns about student behavior were highlighted earlier this year when members of the Brockton School Committee asked for the National Guard to police Brockton High. Some school administrators believe lawmakers' actions have only tied the hands of school administrators trying to deal with the overall issue of school discipline."When you have a school with 500 students or 1,000 students, you have to make decisions in real-time about the safety of that school community," Needham School superintendent Daniel Gutekanst, said. Gutekanst is among those who believe the law and advocates who support it go too far."We have to have those people, and that includes the legislature who are not in classrooms on a regular basis, to stop telling us how we need to run our schools," Gutekanst said. Gutekanst said for the most part schools are trying to take a balanced approach.