Developing more positive school environments — and minimizing exclusionary discipline practices — requires a shift in the emphasis of older discipline policies, away from zero-tolerance to practices that facilitate positive problem-solving mechanisms, actively consider fairness, and seek to improve engagement and communication. Such changes require the participation of the whole community. The adoption of positive alternative approaches has led to a reduction in suspensions and exclusionary discipline, a reduction in instructional time lost to discipline, and an increase in student engagement with school.
Because these methods improve the school environment for all students, it is important that school discipline systems be reviewed and reformed as a whole. In addition, new programs should be implemented with fidelity and school-wide commitment to the program’s model.
Strategies to Minimize Exclusionary Discipline
- Positive Behavior Intervention and Support (PBIS) — PBIS provides a framework for creating school-wide systems of support that teach and reinforce appropriate student behaviors. Schools following a PBIS approach apply a multi-tiered continuum of positive behavioral approaches, focusing on both strategies to improve school climate and behaviors for all students, and developing targeted supports for students who struggle to meet expectations related to behavior. For more on PBIS, visit the PBIS OSEP Technical Assistance Center website.
- Trauma-Informed Approaches to Behavior and School Discipline — The principles of a trauma-informed approach and trauma-specific interventions are designed to address the consequences of trauma in the individual student and to facilitate healing. Some schools and districts around the country are implementing trauma-informed approaches to reduce the use of exclusionary discipline and to support the provision of behavioral health supports to students. These approaches strive to create compassionate, safe, and supportive learning environments in which the teaching of appropriate responses to trauma is woven into the curriculum and school life. Central to the approach is active support to avoid re-traumatization. For more on trauma-informed care, visit the National Center for Trauma Informed Care website.
- Safe and Responsive Schools (SRS) — The SRS framework assists schools in teaching the social curriculum to all students, focusing special attention on those students who need explicit instruction and structure to learn it. The process is intended to enable schools and school districts to develop a broader perspective on school safety and discipline, stressing comprehensive planning, prevention, and parent/community involvement. It incorporates three levels of action: 1) Creating a safe and responsive climate; 2) Early identification and intervention; and, 3) Effective responses to inappropriate behavior. For more on SRS, visit the Safe & Responsive Schools Project page at the University of Nebraska Lincoln.
- My Teacher Partner Program (MTP) and other support and development for teachers — Many professional development programs provide training and support for teachers in behavior management skills. My Teaching Partner (MTP) is a system of professional development supports for educators (preschool through high school) designed to help improve teacher-student interactions through regular reflection and feedback. A recent study in middle and high schools showed MTP to be effective in reducing office referrals and eradicating racially disproportionate discipline in MTP classrooms.1
- Restorative Justice — Restorative justice refers to a group of practices that aim to hold an offender accountable for his or her actions, often by requiring the offender to engage with the victim and other members of the school community, to provide some type of restoration of what was lost. The process focuses on the harm done to the individual or community, rather than the inviolability of rules, and fosters the mending of relationships, rather than punishing offenders.
- Training for School Resource Officers — SROs, if present in schools, should have specific training related to disability and common behavioral characteristics of children with disabilities to help them distinguish conduct that may be a manifestation of a disability.
Resources/References
(1) Gregory, A. et al., The Promise of a Teacher Professional Development Program in Reducing Disparity in Classroom Discipline Referrals (Washington, DC: Center for Civil Rights Remedies and the Research-to-Practice Collaborative, National Conference on Race and Gender Disparities in Discipline, 2012).
Adapted from Morgan, E., Salomon, N., Plotkin, M., and Cohen, R., The School Discipline Consensus Report: Strategies from the Field to Keep Students Engaged in School and Out of the Juvenile Justice System (New York: The Council of State Governments Justice Center, 2014); and, Jane Wettach, J., & Owen, J., Alternatives to School Suspension Are More Effective at Changing Student Behavior (Durham, North Carolina: Southern Coalition for Social Justice, Youth Justice North Carolina Project, 2014).
