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'Don't Suspend Me!" Fresno State Couple's Book Becomes Amazon Best Seller

Kerry Klein
/
Valley Public Radio
Husband-wife duo John and Jessica Hannigan recently published "Don't Suspend Me!" a book about alternative discipline practices in schools.

Earlier this year, Kern High School District settled a lawsuit that alleged its schools were using discriminatory disciplinary practices to suspend and expel students of color at a higher rate than white students. As a provision of their settlement, they agreed to reduce suspensions and expulsions and incorporate more restorative justice into their discipline.

Simultaneously, some San Joaquin Valley educators were writing about alternative disciplinary practices in a new book that’s been an Amazon best seller in the School Safety category off and on since it was published in 2016.

Listen to the audio above for an interview with the husband-wife duo who wrote the book: Jessica Hannigan, a professor of educational leadership at Fresno State; and John Hannigan, a school principal in Sanger Unified School district.

The Hannigans will publish two more books about restorative justice later this spring.

Kerry Klein is an award-winning reporter whose coverage of public health, air pollution, drinking water access and wildfires in the San Joaquin Valley has been featured on NPR, KQED, Science Friday and Kaiser Health News. Her work has earned numerous regional Edward R. Murrow and Golden Mike Awards and has been recognized by the Association of Health Care Journalists and Society of Environmental Journalists. Her podcast Escape From Mammoth Pool was named a podcast “listeners couldn’t get enough of in 2021” by the radio aggregator NPR One.
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