You think you’ve misheard the statistic the first time you hear it. Preschoolers, who are three or four years old and occasionally just past potty training, are suspended and expelled at a rate that is about three times higher than that of students in K–12 institutions. Some people are still learning how to grasp a crayon. A director is signing documents somewhere, requesting that they not return.
It’s an odd picture to look at. Suspension has always been associated with older children—those who talk back or skip class. However, the data has been telling a different story for some time. The prekindergarten expulsion rate is approximately 6.7 per 1,000 enrolled children, while the K–12 expulsion rate is 2.1 per 1,000. As if their extra year of life has somehow made them more disposable, four-year-olds are expelled at a rate that is about fifty percent higher than that of three-year-olds.
Researchers from Portland State University and the Oregon Social Learning Center conducted a recent study in Oregon to try and understand why. In an effort to find predictors, they polled early childhood program owners and directors throughout the state. The response that kept coming up was embarrassingly straightforward: the providers themselves are worn out. Teachers who are under stress are much more likely to suspend or expel a student. Despite being repeatedly discovered in study after study, it continues to be one of those conclusions that everyone agrees upon with little variation.
The results are different if you’ve ever stood in a preschool classroom at 2:00 p.m., when the air thickens with sticky juice cups, tired toddlers, and at least one full-volume meltdown. The labor is physically taxing. heavier on an emotional level. Additionally, early educators continue to be among the lowest-paid workers in the nation, frequently earning less than those who serve coffee nearby. Despite the fact that brain development occurs during these years at a rate that is unmatched in human life, the work is written off as glorified babysitting.
Reading the research gives the impression that the system has been subtly depending on the generosity of underpaid women for decades, and that generosity is finally eroding. Training courses, workshops on mindfulness, and mentorship initiatives have all been tried. A little assistance. However, the Oregon researchers make the fairly direct claim that meeting basic needs cannot be replaced by professional development. A wage issue cannot be resolved by meditation.
However, stress is not the only explanation. It doesn’t explain why children with disabilities, American Indian and Alaska Native children, African American and Black children, and boys continue to be disproportionately affected by these decisions. Black children were asked to leave care at a rate that was almost two percentage points higher than their share of the preschool population in the Oregon data. Such numbers don’t just happen. In a 2023 statement, the American Academy of Pediatrics specifically identified implicit bias and urged pediatricians to understand how systemic racism permeates a three-year-old’s classroom.
Some states have attempted to outright prohibit the practice. Depending on who you ask, the outcomes have been either theatrical or modest. Directors come up with solutions. A silent phone call informs a parent that their child might be happier somewhere else. No records, no paperwork, no statistics to monitor. Off the books, the expulsion simply occurs.
It’s difficult to ignore the fact that the kids most impacted by all of this—those who lose their first taste of school, their friends, and occasionally their parents’ jobs—are also the least able to explain what happened to them. The shame is quietly absorbed by their families. It’s still unclear if anyone is paying attention to them.
