7 Educational indicators of alcohol-related harm to minors
7.1 Stand-downs and suspensions in schools
7.2 Summary
7.1 Stand-downs and suspensions in schools
Information on reasons for student stand-downs and suspensions is only available for the school years following the law change. Ministry of Education 2001 states that:
Stand-downs, [and] suspensions, ... are some ways to deal with student behaviour that disrupts teaching and learning and threatens the learning of other students. These approaches are not used lightly by schools, but are part of the process to help students return to productive learning and relationships with the school community.
Ministry of Education 2003 provides the following definitions:
Stand-down is the formal removal of a student from school for a specified period. Stand-downs of a student can total no more than 5 school days in any term, or 10 days in a school year. Following stand-downs, students return automatically to school.
Suspension is the formal removal of a student from school until the board of trustees decides the outcome at a suspension meeting. Following a suspension the board may decide to lift the suspension with or without conditions, to extend the suspension, or in the most serious cases, to either exclude or expel the student.
To set the figures in Table 7.1 in context, for 2003, 2.7% of the school roll faced a stand-down and 0.6% a suspension. These figures are very similar to the equivalent figures in 2001 and 2002.
The number of stand-downs for alcohol decreased each year from 2001 to 2003, and also decreased as a proportion of all stand-downs. The number and percent both increased slightly in 2004. The number of suspensions for alcohol each year between 2000 and 2004 fluctuated between 165 and 208. The percentage of all suspensions also fluctuated between 3% and 4%.
Table 7.1 School stand-downs and suspensions for alcohol, 2000–2004
| Stand-downs | Suspensions | |||
| Number | Percent | Number | Percent | |
| 2000 | 1033 | 6.1 | 181 | 3.5 |
| 2001 | 833 | 4.9 | 208 | 4.3 |
| 2002 | 799 | 4.5 | 165 | 3.3 |
| 2003 | 707 | 3.6 | 185 | 3.8 |
| 2004 | 772 | 3.8 | 136 | 2.8 |
Source: Ministry of Education 2001, Ministry of Education 2002, Ministry of Education 2003, Ministry of Education 2004, and Ministry of Education 2005.
Although there was no statistical information available on schools and alcohol before the law change, the available statistics suggest that alcohol does not appear to be a major reason for students being suspended or stood-down from school in the five years following the law change.
