Instead, we should be focused on helping students understand how to change the behavior and cope with the emotional reaction that led to the behavior in the first place. Yes, there should still be a consequence, but there should also be education so there doesn’t need to be more consequences in the future.

-Grayling Middle School Mission Statement

While my district does believe in educating the full student, it doesn’t always follow through with that ideology. Often, my district is more focused on transitioning “problem students” to GLOE (online education) rather than helping them to fix the problem. My behavior specialist believes in “3 strikes, you’re out!” It should never be that way.

Students are developing and learning every day. We need to acknowledge that and stop expecting children to act like adults when adults don’t even act like adults within our building. The first step is changing the idea of punishment in our district. Our principal is open to the change entirely as this is one of the first things he mentioned to me about our school and district.

Lifelong Learning

I believe there is no such thing as a bad kid. All our students are learning and developing as they grow. We often place too much pressure on the developing minds of middle school students (give or take a few years). This includes students who make choices that do not align with school rules and expectations.

I believe punishments are not useful to a lesson that should be learned. Punishments tell a student what they did was bad, but they do not allow the student to reflect on what was “bad” about what they did, nor do punishments help students learn the lesson. Consequences are an opportunity to  reflect, actually learn the lesson, and find coping strategies for the actual root of the problem. 

Tim Sanchez-Principal

Stan Forrester-Student Behavior Specialist

At my school, Tim Sanchez is the principal and is key in making decisions about how the school handles misbehaving students. He is the person who can change the discipline procedures for any case. Tim has been clear that he believes in consequence instead of punishment from our very first meeting. He is unsure exactly how to encourage more staff to jump on board with his beliefs though. 

Stan Forrester is the student behavior specialist who carries out the discipline procedures. He does not agree that every student should be faced with consequences rather than punishments. He’s sort of old school in his approach; if a student is scared of the punishment they faced, they won’t do the bad thing wrong again. 

I believe Stan is the anchor of punishment even though Tim is pushing for consequence.

Stan Forrester-Student Concern Forms

I have a great relationship with both of these administrators in my building. There are also specific avenues in order to reserve time for a conversation with either of them.

Tim prefers that you schedule a meeting via the shared google calendar. He will approve or decline the time as long as he is free. All of his meetings are listed so it is easy to find a good time for a meeting. He also likes to not waste time and get straight to the point, so I know to always be fully prepared before I meet with Tim.

Stan is more simple to get ahold of on any given day. I can find Stan in the halls (or even often in my room) or I can contact him via the student concern forms located in our school’s google classroom. He responds quickly to just about any method, especially when it concerns a student who is causing a disruption in class.

1st Wednesday of Every Month

The student handbook is where our discipline procedures can be found at any given moment. The SIT Committee is the place where the handbook is often revised with confirmation from the principal. 

If any changes need to be made to the student handbook, it will apply for the upcoming school year and needs to be finalized before June 1st.

My school has a 50/50 pool of educators who support building relationships as a classroom management tool and those who don’t think they have the time to build those relationships. This is something I was literally warned about when I interviewed for my position.

After many meetings, I know the best way to get both sides on the same page is to present a case that affects everyone. Then, introduce how building relationships will help in that case, followed up by the new idea for a behavior intervention that will not be time consuming for any one set of people or person.

Emails

Skyward

Board Meetings

The public in this case are the parents whose children may often times be in trouble for the same thing over and over. Our best communication method is phone calls. Often though, these parents hear the same phone calls at least once per week. 

Sharing emails with parents can either be a good or bad thing. Most will not answer an email, but use their email to contact you. Also, it’s time consuming and when parents take things out of context, it can really be a pain to explain, usually ending in a phone call after all.

Skyward is our grading/attendance system. Parents are able to see grades, disciplines, and more using the program. They can also receive messages this way. 

Board meetings are a great way to get information out as well. In our town, many people rely on board meetings to know what is really going on in the schools. This is a great way to spread information in the community.

That is where I come in! I plan on presenting the information to Tim, choosing a select few students to try out the new system with, and helping teachers find ways to really buy into the new method we will be trying. After I collect all this data, I will present it to Tim and he gets to be the person to make the final call.