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With current discipline measures we see discipline policy being taken upon students who often times are acting out, or having normal behaviors because they are in need of attention, they are dealing with trauma at home this will only continue to disproportionately effect students it already is, like black, latinx, native, and students with disabilities. While these same category of students are being disproportionately affected by COVID, Trauma informed practice must increase during this time

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As America's students head back into their virtual or real-life classrooms, new rules await.

In Jacksonville, Florida, students who don't wear a mask repeatedly could be removed from school and made to learn online. In some Texas districts, intentionally coughing on someone can be classified as assault. In Memphis, minor misbehaviors could land students in an online "supervised study."

It's amounting to a flood of changes to school rules and discipline codes at a time of heightened stress for students, parents, and teachers.

Those rules reflect schools' attempts to make learning during a pandemic safe and possible. But the increased attention to student misbehavior has advocates and many parents very worried that students who were disproportionately removed from classrooms before the pandemic - namely Black and Native students, and students with disabilities - will bear the brunt of these new consequences, undermining schools' promises to provide students from hard-hit communities with extra social and emotional support.

"We have seen and felt the impact of having a Black child with learning differences and how that's been treated disciplinarily. So I've got a lot of concerns," said Cassandra Kaczocha, a parent of a son headed into eighth grade in Chicago, where schools are set to start virtually and monitor student engagement over a six-hour school day. "He can't sit there and look at the screen the whole time and give the appropriate cues to the teacher that he's paying attention."

And at a time when many students are already struggling emotionally and have missed a lot of instruction, harsh discipline or removing students could have particularly worrisome consequences.

"It is the definition of taking a crisis and making it worse," said Liz King, who directs the education equity program at The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, an umbrella organization of civil rights groups. "We need to find better ways to support children and better ways to support families. That was always true, but the urgency now is just incomparable."

Why people are worried

Schools across the country have promised that they will focus on addressing students' social and emotional needs as they head back to school - in some cases prioritizing that before getting students back on track academically in recognition of the toll taken by both the coronavirus pandemic and the country's ongoing reckoning with its history of racism and the police killings of Black Americans.

But parents and educators are still worried that the pandemic could set off a new wave of harsh discipline for students.

Schools are under a lot of added pressure to keep students and educators safe, and some kinds of misbehavior could carry big health risks. Removing a face mask or intentionally coughing on others could spread illness. Even a public display of affection in a high school hallway could now be considered a safety risk, said Dan Losen, who directs the Center for Civil Rights Remedies, part of The Civil Rights Project at UCLA.

Teachers, many worried about their own health, may be on edge, perhaps leaving students less room for error.

On top of that, it's likely there will be an uptick in misbehavior. With their movement restricted, students will have fewer avenues to de-stress. Some students will be experiencing new or added trauma, which can cause students to act out.

Several advocates said they were especially worried about Black, Hispanic, and Nativechildren, whose families have experienced higher levels of illness and death during the pandemic. Those communities' experiences have differed, but in many cases they've also faced higher rates of job or economic loss as well as food insecurity.

Students may disrupt classrooms, need more attention from their teachers, or have "some real anger about how this situation has impacted themselves and their family" and not be able to express that, said Miranda Johnson, a clinical professor of law at Loyola University Chicago who studies school discipline.

That makes learning harder, and teachers will have fewer tools at their disposal. Typical interventions like pats on the back or close-up chats are harder now. And while some schools are still holding restorative peace circles to hash out conflicts, it's unclear how effective those are in a virtual or socially distanced setting.

Another issue: School officials say that decisions about whether a student should be disciplined will often come down to figuring out their intent, which is hard to do even in normal times. Such subjective decisions have also been a key driver of racial disparities in school discipline.

Johnson worries students of color who act out will be labeled as "defiant" while white students will be perceived as in need of social and emotional support.

Nationally, Black students and students with disabilities are much more likely than their peers to be suspended or expelled from school, while Native students also face higher-than-average rates of exclusionary discipline.

"All the situations that we know make people vulnerable to bias exist in this situation," Johnson said. "High stress situations, people are at their limits both professionally and personally, lots of discretion in these decisions because there's not clear guidance, and everyone is sort of making things up as they go."

How schools are planning

As the new year begins, schools are adjusting student codes of conduct to account for the complexities of the coronavirus.

Take wearing a face mask. Failure to wear one will be classified as a dress code violation in several districts, with escalating consequences for repeat offenses. That's the case in Duval County, Florida, where the first time a student doesn't wear a mask, they'll have to fill out a safety contract. By the fourth time, a student could be removed from in-person schooling.

The schools chancellor in New York City, Richard Carranza, said earlier this month that students who don't comply with face mask requirements will be barred from in-person learning.

Though in some places, the consequences could be criminal. In Utah, students and staff who don't wear a face mask could be charged with a misdemeanor.

Another common revision to student codes of conduct are consequences if a student intentionally spits, sneezes, or coughs on someone else. In some Texas school districts, like Fort Worth ISD and the Houston-based Spring ISD, it will be treated as a type of assault.

In both places, school officials would quickly remove the involved students from their classroom and try to figure out whether the behavior was done on purpose. In Spring ISD, if a student takes off their mask before spitting or coughing, school officials will assume the act was intentional, according to district documents, which could result in a suspension.

In the Weld RE-4 district based in Windsor, Colorado, officials have warned that students who come to school while awaiting a COVID test result will be suspended.

Remote learning has spawned other new rules or warnings that students will be held to similar standards as they would be in school while at home, particularly around dress code and their work spaces.

In Shelby County, Tennessee, which includes Memphis, that means no pajamas, hats, or hoods on screen, and students' shirts must have sleeves. ( The district is providing "flexibility" on clothing bottoms and footwear when a student's full body won't be seen on video.) Other rules might be even tougher to follow: The district is also requiring students' work stations to be clear of "foreign objects" and says students shouldn't eat or drink during virtual classes.

School districts are also making decisions about whether and when students can be muted in an online classroom, lose access to email or online privileges, or be virtually suspended or expelled. Several education advocates said they were worried that new forms of discipline online may look like a suspension in practice, but not be tracked that way or released as part of a district's usual discipline data - potentially leaving parents and the public in the dark.

"We're looking at ways school districts might be informally excluding students, like 'Don't come back to the Google Meet or the Zoom room for a couple days,'" said Johnson, of Loyola University Chicago. "If that were to happen in an in-person setting, it would be considered a suspension. So I think, similarly, it should be considered a suspension if it's happening remotely."

In Memphis, a new virtual code of conduct encourages teachers to avoid removing students completely from a virtual class. But if students are too disruptive, teachers can limit student audio or video, and students can be placed in a short online "supervised study" for minor misbehaviors or a supervised virtual suspension for more serious ones.

In Chicago, a recent revision to the student code of conduct allows principals to block a student's access to email or the district's online programs if the student is disruptive or creates "an unsafe learning environment." The policy says a student can't be blocked indefinitely and that privileges should be restored once there's a plan to address the safety issue.

It's unclear exactly how schools will be held accountable for those moves. The district says it will track principal requests to restrict students' online access, but losing access for a full day won't count as a suspension.

And then there are the most severe cases: parents who've been referred to social services when their children don't participate in remote learning. In Massachusetts, as the Boston Globe recently documented, school officials reported dozens of families to state social workers for possible neglect. Often, their children attended school districts that predominantly serve Black and Hispanic students from low-income families.

"Given all that we know about the racial contours of the digital divide and the homework gap, it is just indefensible to apply a punishment framework to children who are not connecting with their classroom teacher," said King, of The Leadership Conference.

Some schools are trying be proactive, but questions remain

Some school districts are crafting plans for how to handle misbehavior in ways that don't exclude students from the virtual or regular classroom.

In Spring ISD, the district where intentionally spitting or coughing on someone will now be classified as assault, some 35,000 students from the Houston area began the new school year remotely this week.The district recently held a virtual training for principals about handling student behavior, where Superintendent Rodney Watson said trainers pushed educators to think about whether their strategies could contribute to existing inequities.

The district also identified students "that had a lot of infractions last year," Watson said, and is targeting them for extra support this year.

"We're going to be really looking at that from a prevention side," Watson said. "We really want to make sure that someone's acting out is not a product of their basic needs not being met."

Spring ISD also plans to collect and examine data on COVID-related infractions, broken down by race, gender, and economic status. District officials will use that to watch for possible disparities and decide if policies need changing, Watson said.

Winford Adams, Jr. a Spring ISD school board member and parent of three children in the district, said he'll be watching to make sure the district regularly provides that data - "If it isn't, I will ask for it to be," he said. He's especially concerned about how the new coronavirus-related rules could affect students with disabilities.

"We want to make sure we're protecting our teachers from exposure, and we want to have clear guidelines for conduct, but I have a concern about some of those kids," he said.

To Adaku Onyeka-Crawford, the director of educational equity and a senior counsel at the National Women's Law Center, the risk is that old patterns will repeat themselves during the year ahead. But this could be a moment for schools to do things like relax dress codes or rethink suspension and expulsion policies, she said.

"Now is the time that we start to undo those things," she said. And to "actually get at whatever trauma or stress students are bringing into the classroom, whether virtual or physical, and try to provide that counseling or those supports to help them through it."

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New rules, more trauma fuel worries of a coming school discipline crisis

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As America's students head back into their virtual or real-life classrooms, new rules await. In Jacksonville, Florida, students who don't wear a mask repeatedly could be removed from school and made to learn online. In some Texas districts, intentionally coughing on someone can be classified as assault.

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This research shows the disparities between students of color and students with disabilities and their peers. Black students/low-income are twice as likely to be suspended, as their white/non low-income peer for the same violent or no violent discipline infraction. suspension rates are also higher for this same demographic of students, receiving more and longer suspensions. This research shows clear need for change in the way we discipline students

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Senior Director of Research and Evaluation - The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools

Non-Resident Fellow - Education Research Alliance for New Orleans at Tulane University

Director, Collaborative for Student Growth - NWEA

Co-Editor - Educational Researcher

Senior Research Associate - University of Arkansas, Department of Education Reform

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Discipline disparities and discrimination in schools

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In the United States, black and poor students are suspended at much higher rates than their white and non-poor peers. This point is essentially undisputed, due in large part to data that the U.S. D...

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While this article is just an opinion article It is important to look at sources that don't agree with your point of view. This person believes that discipline policy is too lenient partially on the part of home life but also on the school. We have seen from research that discipline policy is in fact more lenient on white students.

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School discipline is a hot subject of debate in the world of education. Recently, states such as California and Texas have been attempting to re-vamp their school discipline policies, including reducing or eliminating suspension for students in elementary schools. Other states are focusing on more proactive approaches, for example requiring PBIS or restorative justice methods. While I fully understand the intent behind these initiatives, I'm not sure many schools are seeing positive results. Students are still misbehaving at seemingly higher rates, teachers are facing more obstacles due to student behavior and overall, schools seem lost in this discipline shift.

I believe that teachers should have a voice in this conversation. Many of the people making decisions on school discipline never see how it plays out in in classrooms. So, from one teacher's perspective, here are some of the school discipline failures I've seen time and again.

Kids have too much leeway at home

It has to be said-the line between parent and child has become increasingly blurry over the last few decades. More and more, we see children who are coming to school with terrible manners, selfish attitudes and inappropriate social behaviors. When students don't learn to behave appropriately at home, those behaviors transfer into the school setting. In Dr. Leonard Sax's "The Collapse of Parenting", he talks about the "transfer of authority from parents to kids" as a key player in children's changing behaviors (Italie, 2016). Children who dictate what's for dinner, when bedtime is, and how much time they get to play on the computer will not be successful at school or in the real world. It's time for parents to take back the reins at home and begin teaching their children right from wrong before they reach the classroom.

We are teachers, not scapegoats

This is probably one of the biggest issues I have with school discipline. No matter what happens, there is always one person we can blame for their behavior-the teacher. For example, Johnny hits another student. The teacher says, "Johnny, we don't hit others. Please apologize." So, Johnny proceeds to kick the teacher. Any sane person would see that Johnny is clearly misbehaving and is responsible for his actions. So why is Johnny's mom saying, "well you just aren't watching him carefully?"Or "he's just so bored in your class?" Why is the principal asking the teacher why she didn't try another method of talking to Johnny? Because everyone is blaming the teacher, not the student, for misbehavior.

I'm not saying that all teachers are perfect, or that the environment we create doesn't add to student misconduct. But at the end of the day, children need to be held accountable for their actions. By teachers, by administrators, and by parents. Teachers cannot handle all student behaviors alone; we need support and help from administration and parents.

Buzzwords are not actions

If you're in the world of education, you've definitely heard of PBIS, restorative justice, trauma-informed practices...the list goes on. But do we really understand what they mean? Most educators will say no. I've been to multiple trainings on these topics and I STILL don't understand what they fully mean. That's what happens when we throw buzzwords around but never actually translate them into practice. Districts start initiatives centered around these buzzwords, nobody truly understands what they mean, and procedures continue as normal.

I respect initiatives that are working to use more proactive approaches to behavior and discipline. I honestly believe that most are better ways to work with our children. But if we don't spend the time and money to properly train our educational staff, it will just crumble to pieces. And not just one PD session after school. Educators need in-depth trainings, practice, check-ins and commitment to work on these new proactive programs. When districts or states roll out these initiatives, they need to ensure that the trainings are happening, that the staff understand, and that everyone is working together to make the programs successful.

A lack of consequences

Any child development expert would tell you that consequences are a necessary part of creating a safe and structured environment for your child. Consequences and punishment sound negative, but they honestly are part of a much greater system that helps your child feel protected and secure. Going back to district initiatives, teachers usually understand why these proactive programs are put in place, and why suspension and expulsions are decreased-but what's the alternative?

Many educators argue there isn't one. I recently saw another teacher's story about a student she sent to the office for profanity towards the teacher, destruction of property, and threatening to hurt the teacher and students. The teacher was stressed by the situation and did everything to keep her class and the student calm, even though the attempts failed. When she was called into the office to discuss this, the administrator told her that because it was a restorative justice school, they talked about his actions and he was ready to come back to class. No consequence whatsoever.

We need to make changes

Students need consequences to mold and learn the correct ways to function. Without consequences, they will only continue poor behavior choices, and many will escalate those behaviors over time. It's no surprise that the teacher mentioned above said the student returned to her class and continued his behavior...and why not? Children are always trying to figure out their world, and they do that by testing limits, pushing boundaries until they reach resistance. If that resistance never comes, then they never learn what is right and wrong. An article from GoodTherapy states that "Despite how they may act, [children] need rules and boundaries so they can both test them and feel protected by them. Creating structure and having predictable responses helps [children] learn to self-regulate."

There is never an easy answer, or even one correct answer, when it comes to raising children. Discipline is no different, and there are many theories on how it should be done in school settings. I hope that over time, educators, administrators, parents and policy makers can work together to create better discipline policies in education. We all play an important role, and we all deserve to be heard. They say it takes a village, and in the end, we all want the same goal-to raise children who will be compassionate, collaborative and successful in life.
We'd love to hear-what do you see as school discipline failures and successes? Come and share in our WeAreTeachers HELPLINE group on Facebook.

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OPINION: What Schools Are Getting Wrong on Discipline

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School discipline is a hot subject of debate in the world of education. Recently, states such as California and Texas have been attempting to re-vamp their school discipline policies, including reducing or eliminating suspension for students in elementary schools. Other states are focusing on more proactive approaches, for example requiring PBIS or restorative justice methods.

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The most important piece of pull from this article is that discipline is the comment that discipline is not one size fits all. A discipline system that works in one classroom may be total wrong for another, through Covid it has been made very clear that the way he handle discipline inside of a classroom does not work once we are forced to move out of the classroom. We can't control when children eat, use the bathroom and the rest of the people in the house.

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I remember being a starry-eyed, youthful 36-year-old English teacher (okay this was 5 years ago, and if I was starry-eyed, it was thanks to Clinique Ultra Volume Mascara) when my colleagues and I gathered in the library to be introduced to another acronym that would save the state of public education: PBIS. PBIS, or Positive Behavioral Interventions and Support , was a multi-tiered system of wraparound services to encourage positive behavior and achievement and discourage negative, anti-social behavior. It was responsive to the social and emotional needs of students, would ensure equitable and appropriate discipline for students under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act , and would ensure that students understood our school's simple and consistent behavioral expectations. We would all have to become comfortable with changing the ways in which we handled classroom discipline, starting with lessening our reliance on office referrals and ISS. For the most part, we were on board, accepting the research that this was good for kids.

5 years is enough time to implement a new program, train staff, work out some of the kinks, and evaluate the successes. It's also enough time to step back and look at what our challenges have been and ask ourselves some tough questions. Teachers work and learn in community, so for my maiden blog post, I would like to have a conversation about PBIS, and its edgier sister, Restorative Justice , which I, admittedly, have zero experience with, but which has been implemented by some area districts.

When I was doing my National Boards (no mascara tube big enough to make me starry-eyed that year), I remember thinking, "I'd be a REALLY awesome teacher if I didn't have students all the time." Like many ed reform measures, PBIS works really well on paper. Its implementation was the tricky part. Our district was a PBIS leader in the region, so some of our changes took on the feel of science experiments- "I hypothesize that...90% of students will achieve success under this change!" Most changes were easily accepted by our staff, who've enjoyed a long reputation for caring about all kids and having good rapport with students. The most controversial change was shifting discipline away from ISS (many of us thought that ISS was closed for business) and handling disruptive behavior and minor infractions in our classrooms through use of a "buddy system" called Refocus, where students we would usually send out to the hall or to ISS would now be sent next door to a designated colleague's room where they would ponder their crimes and engage in some deep soul-searching while filling out a half-sheet on how they can make better choices. The rationale? ISS was not an effective deterrent and it pulled kids away from learning. With Refocus, after 5 to 10 minutes in another classroom, they would emerge like a chrysalis and re-enter our classrooms with vigor and a determination to read Romeo & Juliet without their phones out.

We had some skeptics, but we are nothing if not team players, so we tried. And by the year's end, some found Refocus to work, but many of us quietly swapped it for our own system that did not involve sending kids out to disrupt our co-worker's classrooms. Five years later, our whole department uses whatever system works best for us and our students. Turns out- one size does not fit all. What have we gained? Better identification of students needing services, incentives and rewards for students doing well and showing improvement, and a lot of conversations on the roots of student misbehavior (trauma, mental health issues, home-school disconnect, culturally unresponsive teaching, kids being kids, etc...) This has been good and necessary, but it's too early and results are too mixed to declare victory yet.

I asked a dozen colleagues recently about PBIS and what we need to actually implement it successfully. Our long-time ISS supervisor (who many kids regard as a tough-loving mother-figure) said "STRICT discipline." Another staff member who handles major discipline asked for a simplified system without so many steps or warnings before serious consequences are used. A counselor and two administrators said, simply, "staffing": that we need a full-time mental health counselor or clinician to keep pace with the growing rates of anxiety and depression among teens . That, and alternative means of schooling for students who are not able to work within a traditional school environment.

As for my answer? I worry about a system so forgiving that teenagers develop unrealistic expectations for the world that will greet them after graduation: that bosses will praise their simple act of showing up and punching in on time, that multiple chances will be granted after violating a university's (or society's) code of conduct or rule of law, that life will be less flexible and empathetic in meeting their individual needs, shortcomings, desires. I want them to be successful. I want our school to set them up for success. I think we can all do better- myself included. The student group that we can and need to do better by? Boys. 5 years after implementation of PBIS, I looked at the data on our school disciplinary rates by sex. Males made up 74.9% of tardy referrals and 75.2% of referrals for all other infractions. Our school is not an outlier by any means: boys across the country (and developed world) are overrepresented in school discipline and underrepresented among students thriving academically . If a disciplinary system does not work well for half of our student body, it's time to examine why and work to change it.

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PBIS and the Boy Elephant in the Room: Some Thoughts

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I remember being a starry-eyed, youthful 36-year-old English teacher (okay this was 5 years ago, and if I was starry-eyed, it was thanks to Clinique Ultra Volume Mascara) when my colleagues and I gathered in the library to be introduced to another acronym that would save the state of public education: PBIS.

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There has been lots of conversation on disciplining children in their own homes, what crosses lines like not allowing children to eat during class times or getting up to use the bathroom, etc. I think this may bring to light these issues when we are not in a virtual learning setting, especially using the bathroom. Its a ridiculous assumption that we can keep children from using the bathroom in their own home because they aren't forced to hold it there, and this is something we shouldn't be doing at school.

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School Discipline in the Era of COVID-19

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Social Distancing Should Not Mean Student Push Out: Suspending or expelling students during the pandemic is inhumane and counterproductive.

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The school spoken about in this article creates an ongoing sense of community, the students know and care about each other. This has greatly reduced the numbers of suspension the school has given out. In a covid world creating community in a classroom is not the easiest thing to do but setting aside time for students to be seen and speak to each other daily is something that can be both in person and virtually.

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One of the more radical transformations in public education today begins with a simple greeting each morning among second-graders.

"Good morning, Mahlet," says one student to another at McMicken Heights Elementary School in SeaTac, Washington. "Good morning, Liliana," the second student responds.

The exercise continues briskly until all 23 students seated in a circle have been recognized; then the children stand and greet three classmates each with handshakes and solid eye contact. Next, a handful of students are chosen to ask questions of their peers. While the query can be basic, such as "What kinds of movies do you like?," some of the seven-year-olds struggle to formulate a question and ask it with a strong voice. "I'm not comfortable with that question," one girl says after she receives a vague inquiry about her feelings. When another student is asked about her favorite color, she politely says, "Can you ask me a harder question?"

This activity, part of a Yale-designed program to build students' social skills, usually runs for at least 20 minutes each day in all 18 elementary schools in Highline Public Schools, a racially diverse district just south of Seattle.

"Teachers say, 'I know more about my students than ever before,'" says Alexandria Haas, the principal of this pre-K-6 school. And that knowledge, she believes-combined with new strategies to help students regulate their emotions-has contributed to a 43 percent drop in the number of children referred for discipline from 2014 to 2016, according to school data.

This morning exercise is just one small part of Highline's ambitious transformation from a district that embraced strict discipline to one noted for its efforts to reduce suspensions. According to administrators, between 2013 and 2016, the district of about 19,000 students slashed its number of expulsions and out-of-school suspensions from 1,628 to 475. (The number edged back up in 2016-17 to 682 incidents.)

Highline's efforts come as the country appears poised to dive back into a national discussion about school discipline. During the 1990s, amid rising fears of youth violence, many districts adopted zero-tolerance policies mandating suspensions for certain offenses, including relatively minor infractions such as shoving other students or cursing. Suspension rates nearly doubled between 1973 and 2006. Racial disparities in school discipline, meanwhile, are stark: Black students are roughly four times as likely to be suspended as white students, according to 2014 data from the Department of Education Office for Civil Rights.

The pendulum started to swing back in 2014 when the Obama administration issued a 7,500-word letter warning schools against racial discrimination in discipline. While some districts were already working to reduce suspensions, the federal push spurred more schools to revamp their disciplinary procedures. So, too, did the growing body of evidence documenting the harm associated with pulling students out of school: One study, for example, found that students' chances of dropping out doubled with their first suspension. Today, most of the nation's largest school districts are actively trying to reduce out-of-school suspensions, while more than 25 states have passed legislation to accomplish the same goal.

But Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has put school discipline back on the table by telling reporters she is "looking closely" at whether to change the 2014 federal guidance, which some conservative critics have blamed for sowing " classroom chaos." The Department of Education declined to offer more details on its plan, but it has already sparked pushback: In mid-December, more than 50 members of Congress sent DeVos a letter opposing any changes.

Highline has been notable for how quickly it sought to slash out-of-school suspensions. While the district's disciplinary overhaul has drawn praise from local leaders and some education experts, it has triggered criticism from teachers, who worry that they weren't trained adequately in alternative approaches to discipline. Teacher turnover, in part fueled by these changes, has jumped in the last two years. Highline's experience-along with that of other districts, including those in New York and Los Angeles-suggests just how grueling the pivot to less-punitive discipline can be.

Susan Enfield, the Highline superintendent, joined the district in 2012 after serving as interim superintendent in Seattle. Having never resorted to suspending a student during seven years of teaching high school in California, Enfield knew she wanted to curtail strict discipline. Her strategic plan, released in 2013 and based on conversations with some 40 staff, parents, civic leaders, and students, stated that the district would reduce its out-of-school suspensions to zero, "except when critical for student and staff safety."

Highline achieved that progress while boosting academic achievement across the board. The district reports that the number of AP classes taken has vaulted from slightly more than 1,000 in 2012-13 to 1,627 five years later. Graduation rates have jumped 16.5 percent in the last four years, to 78.8 percent. (The district's strategic plan calls for raising the district graduation rate to 95 percent.) For Hispanic students, who make up 38 percent of the population, the graduation rate rose from 50.1 percent to 75.1 percent, while the rate for black students went from 54.6 percent to 76.3 percent.

But even as achievement rose, problems with the new disciplinary approach began to crop up. Enfield learned of principals skirting the new discipline policies by sending kids home without formally logging suspensions. She told principals she wasn't interested in masking problems by fudging statistics. "In public education," she said, "we tend to gild the lily a little bit."

The re-engagement specialists had a bumpy rollout, too. The district didn't provide much guidance at all for how those new hires were expected to run their classrooms for students suspended in-school. One teacher said that his first attempt at repairing relations after a fight between students ended with the argument spreading to both sets of the students' parents.

"We left a lot of discretion to the [individual schools and staff], which wasn't fair," Enfield acknowledged.

Some teachers say the changes happened too quickly and that classroom discipline has suffered. Teachers began to leave: Administrators note that an average of 12.7 percent of the district's roughly 1,400 staff has left in each of the past two years, higher than the national average of 8 percent teacher turnover and above Highline's rate of 9.6 percent from 2012-13 to 2014-15.

Kimmie Marton, a special-education teacher at Mount Rainier High School, said students became more disrespectful after the threat of out-of-school suspensions diminished. "Kids will cuss you out, there's stealing and disobedience," she said, although she blamed some of the more recent racially tinged taunts she's overheard as much on the tone set by President Trump as on any school policy.

Although Marton said she supports the goal of reducing suspensions, she believes punishment is meted out inconsistently. "The line keeps moving," she said, adding that one student was suspended in-school for three days after throwing a chair across the room, an offense she thought deserved an out-of-school suspension.

Indeed, the district reports that in-school suspensions have risen dramatically as the number of students being sent home has shrunk. Between 2012 and 2016, the number of in-school suspensions rose from 479 to 1,358. Enfield said she hopes to eventually reduce punishments across the board, but that, for now, in-school suspensions help the school monitor students' academic progress and confront the behaviors that led to their outbursts.

Highline isn't the only district facing backlash over new discipline policies. From 2004 to 2014, Los Angeles (which in 2013 became the first school district to ban suspensions for "defiance") shaved its suspension rate from 9 percent to 1 percent, but black students were still suspended at higher rates than other racial and ethnic groups. Many teachers, and even some administrators, felt the changes were rushed through without proper training-and teachers and union officials complained about classroom-discipline issues.

She meanwhile took a handful of steps designed to minimize student conflict and misbehavior. All of the district's elementary and middle schools, for example, rolled out the Yale-designed program to help students communicate, understand, and control their feelings. School staff received at least three hours of training in working with students who've experienced trauma, and existing teacher training on students' emotional needs was expanded. Some high-school teachers also received coaching in "restorative justice," an approach to conflict resolution that emphasizes talking through problems, according to Susanne Jerde, the district's chief academic officer.

Enfield's administration also drafted guidelines to help principals determine what behaviors might trigger certain punishments. And Highline hired "re-engagement specialists" to oversee in-school suspended students in study hall-type classrooms.

Progress was swift. Highline's out-of-school suspensions plunged by 71 percent between 2013 and 2016, according to district administrators. Racial suspension disparities shrank, too. In 2012-13, 10.4 percent of Highline's black students, 11.1 percent of its special education students, and 4.2 percent of its white students were suspended out-of-school at least once. Four years later, the number for black students was 2.9 percent; for special education students, 3.9 percent; and for white students, 1.5 percent.

New York City, home of the nation's largest school district, shrank its number of suspensions 46 percent from 2011 to 2016. But union officials there have criticized Mayor Bill de Blasio's discipline plan, saying the city hasn't given teachers sufficient training in how to defuse conflicts or provided other necessary support. "When things are rolled out quickly, there are always implementation issues," said Mark Cannizzaro, the president of the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators.

When New York tried to ban suspensions altogether for its youngest students in 2016, the United Federation of Teachers president Michael Mulgrew said schools lacked the training, money, and leadership to make the change. "It is easy to ban suspensions. It is much harder to do the real work so suspensions are no longer necessary," Mulgrew wrote in a letter to the schools chancellor, Carmen Fariña. The de Blasio administration blinked and decided to significantly curtail rather than ban suspensions for kindergartners to second-graders.

In Highline, Enfield responded to criticism by seeking additional feedback from teachers and principals, ensuring that top officials from the district visit schools throughout the year to see firsthand the changes in progress. She plans to introduce tweaks along the way-by adding more opportunities for kids to work on social and emotional skills, for example. But for the most part, she's sticking with her approach.

Of the teacher departures, she said, "I'm sure we lost some good teachers because of this change. Sadly, I think that's inevitable." But, she added, "I would argue too that we lost some who were not suited to work with our children. And that is not a popular thing to say."

Highline is striving, however, to give more guidance to the re-engagement specialists who oversee students suspended in-school. It is replicating districtwide the bespoke methods developed by successful re-engagement specialists such as Matthew Burman.

On a recent weekday, five students filed into Burman's classroom in Pacific Middle School. They'd received a lunch detention for arguing with a teacher. Burman handed the students a short form to fill out, and highlighted the questions: "Why was your teacher concerned? What do you want them to know about the violation?"

In his classroom-a large space with a couch, comfortable chairs, and a beaded curtain in one corner-students alternate between 25-minute blocks of schoolwork and coached activities. These include study skills, guided reflections and personality assessments to encourage students to identify their strengths. Burman said he wants students to have "a good experience," but that "we didn't want it to be a glorified study hall or 'Breakfast Club.'"

He measures success by how many students return to his classroom. Less than one in four have returned to his room this year, an improvement over a similar time period last year, he said.

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Will School-Discipline Reform Actually Change Anything?
At nearby Mount Rainier High School, the senior Carlos Diaz is completing a five-day suspension in the classroom of the re-engagement specialist Jeffery Blount. Diaz, who has been suspended in-school three times over the last four years, said he "kind of" liked being with Blount all day. "This place really gives you a lot of time to catch up if you're missing some work," said Diaz. "Teachers come in and help you one-on-one, which is better than in class."

Another student, a ninth-grader named Rhodney Wangugi, was finishing up his first in-school suspension, of two days. He said he missed his friends but liked the distance from students who'd upset him. He felt confident he would avoid further trouble: "I'm trying to change my behavior."

The possibility of DeVos rescinding federal guidelines has left civil-rights advocates worried that more students like Diaz and Wangugi will feel disconnected from school. Dan Losen, the director of UCLA's Center for Civil Rights Remedies, said such a step would "send the wrong message" to districts that continue to mete out harsh punishment. "They won't get scrutiny."

Losen said disciplinary reforms could stumble by glossing over student and staff needs. And while he wasn't familiar with the specifics of Enfield's approach, he said, in general, speed wasn't a concern. "I don't think you can go too fast if you are trying to remedy an injustice. If you are violating students' rights, there are some things you can't go fast enough with."

The Highline district's school board has meanwhile stood by Enfield's approach. In September 2016, it renewed her contract until 2019. She has maintained the support of prominent community leaders such as the King County prosecutor Dan Satterberg, who said that the district's effort to engage students in talking through their problems will result in lower dropout rates and reduce crime. "Susan is a hero to me," he said.

But many teachers remain skeptical. Sue McCabe, the Highline teachers-union president, said that although she believes that Enfield has moved away from a strictly top-down approach to disciplinary reform and is now doing a better job of listening to teachers, she worries that the teacher turnover, which hasn't slowed significantly, will harm the district long term.

Enfield acknowledged missteps. "Knowing what I know now, I would do it differently," she said. "But," she added, "at some point you just have to dive in."
This post appears courtesy of The Hechinger Report.

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Is School-Discipline Reform Moving Too Fast?

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One of the more radical transformations in public education today begins with a simple greeting each morning among second-graders. "Good morning, Mahlet," says one student to another at McMicken Heights Elementary School in SeaTac, Washington. "Good morning, Liliana," the second student responds.

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School discipline seems as though it has moved from being a way to assist and redirect students who need better ways to express themselves into punishment. COVID 19 has shown us that even in a world where we are not in a classroom if we can continue to suspend and expel students for being a "classroom disruption" than this isn't the real reason as to why these students are having these actions brought upon them in the first place. Placing students in separate virtual classrooms for a detention or suspension, keeping them from a regular classroom because they're in the expulsion process, and continuing to carry out these things while children sit in their own homes should open our eyes to how far we have gone with discipline policies. This should open our eyes to how our discipline policies needs to be looked at and changed. It is important that we have to stop just using the fancy terms like "trauma informed practice" and "restorative justice" but, actually provide educators with the training and on going support to follow out these practices. The same discipline system do not work for all schools, all classrooms, and all students. We moving towards an education world in which we try to differentiate lessons to meet the needs of all of our students, this is something that we need to do with discipline as well. All students don't act out for the same reasons, so they don't need the same redirection.

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For reference