In a strong rebuke of zero-tolerance discipline, a blue-ribbon panel has called on Ontario schools to stop expelling and suspending so many students and consider all factors - from a child's age to a learning disability - before kicking them out for bad behaviour. A six-member review team under MPP Liz Sandals is urging schools to be less quick to suspend students, and when necessary to suspend them for shorter periods, keeping them at school where possible rather than sending them home. It calls on schools to communicate better with parents when students get into trouble, and guarantee all expelled students the chance to take an alternative program. They are proposals many expect to be adopted this fall by the Dalton McGuinty government, which has long distanced itself from the Conservatives' tough Safe Schools Act, particularly after the Ontario Human Rights Commission charged that schools seemed to be applying it more harshly with children of colour and disabled students. Although described as "zero tolerance," in fact the act gave schools some discretion as to when to suspend or expel students, a power applied unevenly across the province. Sandals' Safe Schools Action Team, appointed 18 months ago to consult with the public, yesterday released recommendations that call on all schools to use discretion wherever possible, to kick students out only as a last resort. "We're not saying kids should be allowed to get away with obnoxious behaviour - and if a student shows up with a gun, you will always have to suspend - but zero tolerance simply does not work as the best way to make schools safe," said Sandals, whose team consulted with more than 700 parents, teachers, students and community members over the past year. "The trouble is, school boards were all over the place with discipline, and racialized communities felt they were being affected more severely, as were many special-education students and those with mental health and social welfare concerns," said Sandals. Some students told the panel their school had a zero-tolerance suspension policy for a student who was late for class, but a better deterrent would be to keep kids after class with a detention. Education Minister Sandra Pupatello has said she will review the recommendations this summer and prepare a response this fall. These are measures already being used in some schools, including many in Toronto. Principal Doug Paterson at Scarborough's Sir Robert L. Borden Business and Technical Institute created a special in-school suspension room this year, so students who are suspended can stay at school and keep learning, not wander the streets and fall behind in school. And he has launched an array of the prevention programs Sandals' panel is recommending - anti-bullying assemblies, incentive programs for good behaviour, leadership programs, one-on-one counselling for teens at risk and smaller classes for struggling students. "And already our suspensions are way down, because the climate of the school is more positive." Critics of the Safe Schools Act welcomed the recommendations and want the government to give them teeth. "The system worked well for years until the Safe Schools Act came along and pushed uniformity, but principals and vice-principals should really be looking at each child and each case individually," said Toronto District School Board trustee Chris Bolton, who chaired a board task force that heard numerous complaints that schools were quicker to suspend black students than their white peers. Toronto lawyer Lora Patton has represented some students who have taken this fight to court, and she, too, welcomed the proposals for change. "My biggest concern is that the board take money it has been spending on punishment and put it back into prevention." The panel also suggests Queen's Park strip principals of their right to expel students without consulting the school board, a right they were given only six years ago when the new law came in. And it suggests Queen's Park remove a teacher's right to suspend a student for a day without consulting the principal. Ian McFarlane, president of the Ontario Principals' Council, says very few principals exercised this power and that most support a clear move away from the zero-tolerance approach.