Schools Are Punishing ADHD Kids More Than Kids With Behavioral Disorders. The Federal Data Proves It.
Key Findings
Across all 50 states, the median disciplinary removal rate for OHI students was 26-28% over three school years (2019-2022). For students classified under Emotional Disturbance (ED), that number was 11-13%.
Read that again. The category built around ADHD and other health conditions had removal rates roughly double the category specifically defined by emotional and behavioral challenges. The pattern held every single year, even through COVID disruptions.
This wasn't a one-year blip. OHI median removal: 26.06% (2019-20), 28.13% (2020-21), 27.30% (2021-22). ED median removal: 12.52%, 11.87%, 11.00% over the same period.
The gap stayed consistent even as schools went remote, came back hybrid, and returned to in-person. Whatever is driving this, it's baked into the system. It's not about one bad school or one bad year.
The research literature tells us why this is happening. Subjective infractions like "insubordination" and "disrespect" drive the discipline disparity, not objective ones like drugs or weapons. When you look at objective infractions, the OHI disparity shrinks to near zero.
Translation: impulsivity looks like defiance. Inattention looks like disrespect. Emotional dysregulation looks like a kid who "won't" behave. But ADHD is a "can't," not a "won't." The discipline system can't tell the difference.
Students with disabilities make up 17% of K-12 enrollment nationally, but account for 29% of out-of-school suspensions and 24% of in-school suspensions.
The MTA study found more than 43% of students with ADHD experienced detention, suspension, expulsion, or other punishment. Other reporting puts ADHD students at 2x the suspension risk and 5x the expulsion risk compared to non-ADHD peers.
Why It Matters
If your kid with ADHD is getting pulled from class, sent to the office, or racking up suspensions, you already know something is wrong. Now you have federal data proving it's a national pattern, not just your kid's school.
IDEA has built-in protections that most families don't know about. After 10 cumulative days of removal in a school year, the district must conduct a manifestation determination review (MDR) to decide if the behavior is connected to the child's disability. If it is, the removal has to stop and the school must address the behavior through the IEP. But 10 days of missed instruction is already a lot of damage. And IDEA doesn't require schools to track whether they actually follow through with behavioral supports after these reviews.
The OHI category is growing while ED is shrinking. More kids with emotional and behavioral profiles are being classified under OHI instead of ED. That means students who might need behavioral intervention plans built into their IEPs from day one are landing in a category where those supports aren't automatic. The classification shift is a system design problem, and your kid might be caught in it.
This matters for every ND family, not just ones dealing with discipline right now. ADHD is the most common neurodevelopmental diagnosis in children. More than 7 million kids in the U.S. have been diagnosed with it. If your child has an IEP or 504 plan, understanding how the discipline system works (and where it breaks) is a level-up for your advocacy game.
The Fine Print
This is the biggest limitation and the author is upfront about it. OHI includes ADHD, but it also includes epilepsy, diabetes, Tourette syndrome, and other health conditions. The IDEA data doesn't break OHI down by specific diagnosis.
We're confident ADHD is the primary driver here. It's by far the most common condition in the OHI category, and the converging evidence from ADHD-specific studies shows the same discipline patterns. But we can't prove from this data alone that the high removal rates are specifically about ADHD kids.
This study shows that OHI discipline rates are higher than ED rates. It does not tell us why. There are no inferential statistics, no regression models, no controls for confounding variables.
The "why" likely involves teacher training gaps, subjective discipline criteria, and the OHI-ED classification shift. But those are supported by other research, not by this paper. This paper shows the pattern. Other research explains it.
The study uses median state-level percentages, not individual student data. That means a state where 5% of OHI students get removed and a state where 50% get removed could average out to look "fine."
On top of that, only 22% of states use the federal OHI definition without modifications. What gets counted as OHI varies by state, which means these percentages are comparing slightly different populations across state lines.
Here's an alternative explanation the paper mentions but doesn't dig into. The ED category is shrinking while OHI is growing. Students with emotional and behavioral profiles are increasingly classified under OHI instead of ED. If those students brought their discipline patterns with them, the OHI removal rate would go up and the ED rate would go down without anything changing about how schools treat ADHD.
This doesn't let anyone off the hook. Even if reclassification is part of the story, those students are landing in a category where behavioral supports aren't automatically built into their IEPs. The system is still failing them. But it does mean the 2:1 ratio might not be purely about ADHD being misread as defiance.
The paper cites just 10 sources. It's a single-author study with no external funding. That's not disqualifying, but it means this work hasn't had the collaborative pressure-testing that multi-author, funded research typically gets.
What to Do With This
Request a Functional Behavior Assessment (FBA) now, before your kid hits 10 days of removal. Don't wait for the school to offer one. Under IDEA, you can request an FBA at any time through the IEP team. Getting one proactively means the school has to look at why the behavior is happening, not just punish it.
Demand a Behavior Intervention Plan (BIP) at your next IEP meeting. An FBA without a BIP is just paperwork. The BIP is the part that actually changes how the school responds to your kid's behavior. Push for specific, positive strategies, not just "consequences for noncompliance."
Track every removal. Every office referral, every in-school suspension, every time your kid gets sent to the hall. Write the date, the reason given, and how long they were out. IDEA protections kick in at 10 cumulative days, but many schools don't track removals accurately. You need your own records. Tools like Brainloot can help you log behavioral patterns and disciplinary events alongside symptoms, making it easier to build your case at IEP meetings.
Print this paper's data table and bring it to your next IEP meeting. When the school says "your child's behavior is the problem," you have federal data showing this is happening to OHI students at double the rate of ED students across every state. It's not your kid. It's the system.
Audit your school's discipline data by IDEA category. Does your building show the same OHI-ED gap? If so, that's a systemic signal, not a collection of individual "bad kids." Use this data to push for staff training on recognizing disability-related behaviors vs. willful defiance.
Question every subjective discipline referral for OHI students. "Insubordination" and "disrespect" are the categories where the disparity lives. Before writing a referral, ask: could this be impulsivity? Could this be executive function? Could this be a kid whose brain physically can't do what I'm asking right now?
Push for Universal Design for Learning (UDL) as a preventive measure. The study's author specifically recommends UDL as a way to reduce discipline referrals before they happen. Designing instruction that works for different brains from the start means fewer moments where ADHD behaviors get read as defiance.
Check whether FBAs and BIPs are actually being implemented. IDEA doesn't track follow-through. A completed FBA sitting in a file cabinet isn't helping anyone. The gap between paperwork and practice is where kids fall through.
We need IDEA data that disaggregates OHI by specific diagnosis. The biggest limitation of this study is one the researcher can't fix. It requires a change to federal data collection. Until we can separate ADHD from other OHI conditions in national datasets, every study on this topic has the same blind spot.
Study the OHI-ED classification shift and its effects on IEP services. If students with behavioral profiles are increasingly classified under OHI instead of ED, are their IEPs including the behavioral supports they need? Or is the reclassification creating a service gap?
Replicate this analysis with student-level data. State-level medians are useful for showing the national pattern, but district-level or student-level analyses could reveal where the disparity is worst and what interventions actually reduce it.
Federal data across all 50 states shows that students in the OHI category (which includes ADHD) get removed from classrooms at roughly double the rate of students classified under Emotional Disturbance. The category defined by behavioral challenges gets disciplined less than the one that isn't. This pattern held for three straight years.
The data is public, reproducible, and hard to argue with. It can't tell us exactly why, or isolate ADHD from other OHI conditions. But the converging evidence points in one direction: ADHD behaviors are being treated as defiance instead of disability.
For families, the move is clear. Request FBAs proactively. Demand BIPs that actually change how the school responds. Track every removal yourself. And bring this data to your next IEP meeting. Your kid's neurology isn't the problem. The system that punishes it is.