News on Behavior and Discipline

DeSoto County Schools have been the subject of investigation by The Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights, based on claims from African American parents and students regarding discriminatory student disciplinary practices. The complains date back to a year ago, when formal data was presented to the OCR. Preliminary evidence suggests not just isolated incidents but a pattern of disciplinary consequences that are representative of the nature of this problem.

A study conducted in 2013 documented disproportionality in special education, which has been an ongoing issue that policy-makers have been aiming to resolve. One problem facing schools today is the definition of "significant disproportionality," for which they must reserve 15% of Part B funds to address with intervention services. However, schools are using discrepant definitions of "significance" which is leading to problems in addressing disproportionality.

A student from Cambridge Public Schools (CPS) was expelled due to "immature conduct" that occurred in his dorm room at an off-campus, non-school-affiliated wrestling camp. Parents appealed the school's decision at two due process hearings, but the decision was upheld at both. Parents are asking that the expulsion be voided and all further consequences be removed because these consequences exceeded the school district's power, under state law.

Schools nationwide are struggling to balance the legalization of medical Marijuana and upholding school policies that outlaw its use on school grounds. Schools in only 3 of 23 states that have legalized the use of medical Marijuana are creating policies for its use in schools. A few districts have determined that students with doctor's notes may have parents or guardians come to school to administer the drug to students; however, school nurses or staff are not allowed to administer the substance.

A seventh-grader in Vandalia, Ohio, was arrested for threats made to a Muslim student after an argument on the school bus. The seventh-grader is facing a 10-day suspension and possible expulsion for the racial slurs made against the other student. The student's father does not blame the seventh-grader for his words, as he acknowledges that he is just repeating what he's heard adults say, emphasizing what a painful time it has been for Muslim-Americans in the United States recently.

In a meta-analysis, researchers at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln reveal a causal relationship between sleep and ADHD medications such as Adderall and Ritalin. While ambiguities still exist regarding the different effects of varying dosages, the results clearly indicated that more frequent dosages had larger effects. With these results, parents and physicians should consider the costs and benefits before prescribing.

Corporal punishment is still legal in 19 states, however 60% of students subjected to corporal punishment, or "paddling", each year come from just 4 states: Mississippi, Texas, Georgia, and Alabama. Furthermore, while African American students make up only 16% of students nation wide, they comprise 35% of the students receiving corporal punishment. There is a clear distinction between the frequency and demographics of students receiving this harmful discipline, and this article discusses several aspects of corporal punishment, as well as revealing negative outcomes.

Many schools are rethinking Zero-Tolerance policies and opting for more inclusive disciplinary strategies. Classic Zero-Tolerance policies opt for drastic consequences for seemingly minute misbehavior, which can lead to disproportionate discipline for many students and significant amounts of time spent outside of the classroom. These alternative strategies would combat exclusionary discipline and provide more reasonable consequences for misbehavior.

According to a study published in JAMA Pediatrics, several states have significantly reduced bullying and cyberbullying rates among teens by roughly 24 and 20 percent, respectively. Although these rates varied by state, there is evidence for reduced bullying when state anti-bullying laws included at least one of 16 components from the Department of Education. Articles on this study were written by CBS News, NPR, and HealthDay.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune (10/3, Matos) reports more than 50 kindergartners and first-grade students in Minneapolis Public Schools were suspended last year, despite a moratorium on suspensions for students of those ages in the district. Students were suspended for failing to follow directions, being disruptive, and other behavior.

Teachers in the Oklahoma Public School District are upset with the new suspension procedures, and feel that students are not receiving appropriate punishments for their misbehaviors. Teachers report feeling unsafe in schools and several have resigned or changed schools due to these new practices. While the number of suspensions and length of suspensions has decreased, teachers argue that student behavior has not improved.

NPR reports that a new report from the University of Pennsylvania “singles out 13 Southern states” with schools that “suspend and expel African-American students at higher rates than white students.” In 132 of the 3,000 districts the researchers examined, “suspension and expulsion rates of blacks were off the charts, with suspension rates far greater than their representation in the student body."

About 75% of colleges and universities collect students' high-school disciplinary records, and about 89% use that data in admissions decisions, according to a study released Friday by the Center for Community Alternatives. Supporters say the data helps colleges keep campuses safe, while others suggest the practice has civil rights implications.

The school district in Oakland, California is joining “a handful” of other districts in the state in a ban on suspending students for such incidents of “willful defiance”. The piece defines willful defiance as “a broad category of misbehavior that includes minor offenses such as refusing to take a hat off...and more severe incidents like swearing at a teacher or storming out of class.” The piece notes that such suspensions are already banned “from kindergarten through third grade”, as well as districts in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Pasadena. This decision was made in Oakland after the ED's Office of Civil Rights required the district to employ a range of practices that reduced suspensions.

According to The Roanoke Times, Bruce and Linda Bays, the parents of a sixth grader at Bedford Middle School (BMS) who was suspended for a year, have filed suit in federal court against Bedford County Schools (BCS) and the Bedford County Sheriff’s Office (BCSO). Their son was suspended under accusations that he had told classmates that he had marijuana on the school property. After a search of the student's backpack, the assistant principal confiscated a leaf and a lighter and the student was in turn suspended. Although field tests of the leaf came back negative for Marijuana, the student remains suspended.

The Associated Press reports that, despite taking “more than 10 years, several proposals and countless stories from young people who have suffered,” Montana’s new anti-bullying law means that the state has “joined every other state in the nation” in working to prevent bullying. Democratic Governor Steve Bullock said he is “pleased that Montana will finally have a bullying-prevention law.” The law will target repeated hazing, harassment, and threats against others. The law provides recourse for parents and local authorities to pursue bullies, schools, or officials that break the law.

Many schools in New York have turned to restorative practices for students eliciting insubordinate behavior in schools. While these softer approaches have been met with some resistance, they are proving to be an effective alternative to suspension and expulsion for many students. New York City has announced a $1.2 million dollar expansion to these restorative justice efforts, in hopes to provide appropriate training to teachers and staff and ultimately slow the "school-to-prison-pipeline" for these students.

This report describes findings from the past six years of suspension rates and perceptions of school safety in Chicago schools. In general, out of school suspensions have decreased; however, in-school suspensions for African American students have doubled while remaining the same for other races. Additionally, suspension rates were higher for males, students with disabilities, and students with low test scores.

Suspension rates dropped for many of the nation’s school districts — including some in the Washington region — but U.S. students still lost about 18 million days of instruction to out-of-school punishments in the 2011-2012 school year, according to research released Monday.

An influential literature in criminology has identified indirect “collateral consequences” of mass imprisonment. We extend this criminological perspective to the context of the U.S. education system, conceptualizing exclusionary discipline practices (i.e., out-of-school suspension) as a manifestation of intensified social control in schools. Similar to patterns of family and community decline associated with mass incarceration, we theorize that exclusionary discipline policies have indirect adverse effects on non-suspended students in punitive schools. In this article, the effect of suspension on reading and math achievement is examined.

Girls of color face much harsher school discipline than their white peers but are excluded from current efforts to address the school-to-prison pipeline, according to a new report issued today by the African American Policy Forum and Columbia Law School’s Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies. The report, Black Girls Matter: Pushed Out, Overpoliced and Underprotected, is based on a new review of national data and personal interviews with young women in Boston and New York.

One way to increase student engagement is to use structures that illicit a response from all students and provide teachers formative data on student learning. In order to meet a variety of students' needs, educators should work to also incorporate the use of a variety of multiple intelligences in their classrooms. Here are my top three low-tech and low-prep strategies to increase student engagement and provide teachers real-time data to adjust and differentiate instruction. All three assessment strategies are quick, inexpensive and easy to teach.

The Minneapolis school district plans to closely monitor why schools are suspending black, Latino and Native American students as part of an agreement announced Friday with the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights.

Letter from the US Department of Education was sent to school districts across the US that provides schools with guidance on how to handle the bullying of students with special needs. This letter is a response to an increase of complaints from schools due to this behavior occurring.

The parents of four African American student filed a $25 million lawsuit against Northwest Local school district and Colerian Township Police Department becuase students were alleged to have been expelled and denied due process on the basis of race.

With much attention focused on the effectiveness of zero-tolerance discipline policies and the alarming number of student suspension and expulsion rates across the country, restorative discipline offers a glimmer of hope as a viable alternative to current popular discipline strategies.

A new survey out this week from The School Superintendents Association, in collaboration with the Children’s Defense Fund, takes a look at how district leaders feel about school discipline practices.

Parents who can't afford to purchase enough diapers are forced to leave dirty diapers on infants, leading to cranky babies and much more.

University of Nebraska study of parent-teacher collaboration and how it can improve student behavior.

The mass shooting at Columbine High School spurred schools to adopt "zero tolerance" policies. Do they work? NPR Education Correspondent Claudio Sanchez and NASSP School Safety Specialist Bill Bond discuss.

The School Superintendents Association, and the Children’s Defense Fund partnered to survey 500 school superintendents to determine the state of district-wide school discipline policies and practices.

Colorado public schools enacted a law to move public schools away from criminalizing minor school discipline students, known as zero tolerance.

The Obama Administration and the Department of Education recently released a "Dear Colleague" letter seeking to decrease the use of zero tolerance discipline policies. The National Association of Secondary School Principles supports this movement away from discipline strategies that rely on suspension and expulsion. Resources to help schools work within the confines of the Dear Colleague letter are available here.

The Maryland State Board of Education has approved far reaching changes to the state's discipline policies to achieve the goal of a more constructive approach to student discipline that eliminates racial disparities in suspensions and keeps disciplined students in school.

The Camden School Board has agreed to pay $700,000 to settle claims stemming from a decision to make elementary school students eat lunch on a gymnasium floor as punishment for spilling a jug of water in their fifth-grade classroom.

Minneapolis schools are considering revisions to discilpine policies that have led to the use of exclusionary discipline, like suspension and expulsion, with young students, particularly young minority students.

The father of a 7-year-old suspended from his Anne Arundel County school for nibbling his breakfast pastry into the shape of a gun filed a formal appeal Thursday, asking that the second-grader’s school records be wiped clean of the offense. This case occurred 11 weeks after the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., which left 20 children and six staff members dead, heightening sensitivities about security and guns.

In a recent interview with National Public Radio (NPR), Robert L. Listenbee, Administrator of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, discussed priorities for the Office, which include supporting research and programs that promote the safety and wellbeing of the nation’s youth.

Thousands of schools still have a discipline gap between groups of students, with students of color receiving suspensions for a number or minor infractions. While these students see this treatment as unfair, teachers remain that they reserve the right to remove noncompliant or disruptive students.

In this first of a kind breakdown of data from over 26,000 U.S. middle and high schools, Civil Rights Project researchers estimate that well over two million students were suspended during the 2009-2010 academic years.

The U.S. Department of Education is investigating whether Seattle Public Schools discriminated against African-American students by disciplining them more frequently and more harshly.

DC Charter schools expel students more than traditional public schools.

New York City public-school students can no longer be suspended for one-time, low-level infractions.