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BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Louisiana's public schools are prohibited from suspending or expelling elementary school students for violating school uniform rules.
Gov. Bobby Jindal's office announced Monday that the Republican governor had signed into law the bill by Sen. Sharon Weston Broome, a Baton Rouge Democrat. The prohibition covers students in preschool through fifth grade.
The bill contains an exception if the uniform violation is tied to a "willful disregard of school policies."
The measure was significantly scaled back from Broome's original proposal. The senator initially wanted to ban schools from expelling or suspending students in kindergarten through third grades entirely, unless the behavior posed "a threat to the safety or well-being" of others.
But that broader proposal ran into strong opposition from public school officials.
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Senate Bill 54: www.legis.la.gov
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