The Obama administration is now urging schools to abandon overly zealous discipline policies that civil rights advocates have long said lead to a school-to-prison pipeline that discriminates against minority students. School districts must now reexamine their discipline policies to ensure fairness and equity in student discipline. Read article from The Washington Post Holder, Duncan announce national guidelines on school discipline and MSNBC.
In a recent study by the Civil Rights Project, one of the findings concludes that in American schools, black students without disabilities were more than three times as likely as whites to be expelled or suspended. Although black students made up 15 percent of students in the data collection, they made up more than a third of students suspended once, 44 percent of those suspended more than once and more than a third of students expelled. It has been reported that minority students were disproportionately arrested, suspended and expelled for minor, nonviolent offenses.
School leaders must have a vision on what a positive school environment looks like, sounds like and feels like. A positive school environment has behavioral systems in place, a purposeful curriculum, engaging instruction, supportive and nurturing staff, parental and community supports. A school leader must hold the curriculum, instruction and staff constant. Parental supports are not always in their control but a true leader will have other mechanisms in place to offer support. It is a tall order, but it can be done.
Here are some resources that can be used to begin the examination of the behavior and academic systems in your school. Click on the links to view resources.
- USDOE Resource Guide for Improving School Climate and Discipline
- USDOE Directory of Federal School Climate and Discipline Resources
- Safe Supportive Learning
- Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports – PBIS
- Response to Intervention – RTI
- Reducing Behavior Problems in the Elementary School Classroom
- Stop Bullying
- Dropout Prevention
- Guide for Developing High-Quality School Emergency Operations Plan
- Breaking Schools’ Rules: A Statewide Study of How School Discipline Relates to Students’ Success and Juvenile Justice Involvement
Angela Alexander, educator, lover of learning
Teach2Know 
I recommend that you think about school discipline and classroom management within the context of implementing school-wide Positive Behavioral Support Systems (PBSSs) that address the following areas:
(a) school safety and discipline,
(b) positive classroom climate and behavior management,
(c) prosocial peer interactions that prevent teasing, taunting, bullying, harassment, hazing, and physical aggression, and—most importantly—
(d) student social, emotional, and behavioral self-control and self-management.
The ultimate goal of classroom management is NOT JUST to “manage” student behavior or eliminate “discipline problems.” The ultimate goal is to ESTABLISH and MAINTAIN high levels of school safety and positive classroom climates and interactions, student social, emotional, and behavioral self-management skills, and staff commitment and consistency.
As a national PBIS/PBSS leader, it is important to understand that there are a number of Positive Behavioral Support models available across the country. It is also important to know that PBIS is NOT an evidence-based model, regardless of the fact that U.S. Department of Education (through its Office of Special Education Programs) has pushed it since 1997 as it has spent over $100 million of taxpayer money in various attempts to build and validate this “framework.”
Most important is the fact that the PBIS model is not comprehensive, some of its approaches do not follow appropriate effective behavioral science practices and other clinical methodologies, and thus, there is a potential that these approaches harm students (by not providing appropriate services) and frustrate staff (because needed student outcomes are not occurring).
Ultimately, the SCIENTIFIC foundation of an evidence-based, multi-tiered PBSS (not PBIS) program includes the following:
(a) Positive school and classroom climates, and positive relationships across staff, students, parents, and community;
(b) Social, emotional, and behavioral skills instruction for all students (including “retrofitting” the social skills to prevent teasing, taunting, bullying, harassment, and physical aggression);
(c) Motivation and accountability processes—that are anchored at the GRADE LEVEL and not the individual classroom level—so that students are (group, peer, and individually) motivated to demonstrate their learned skills;
(d) Consistency across students, staff, and settings; and
(e) The transfer of training so that safe and prosocial behaviors are implemented in the classroom, within the peer group, and across the common areas of the school.
Project ACHIEVE (www.projectachieve.info) is the only evidence-based PBSS program in the country—as designated by the U.S. Department of Education’s Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). It is the Arkansas Department of Education’s positive behavioral support program, and it has been implemented in thousands of schools nationwide over the past 30 years.
Here are some resources for you to consider:
1. For a brief (16) minute overview of all of this, go to the following two YouTube videos:
http://www.weareteachers.com/lessons-resources/details/take-back-your-classroom!-
2. Then, there are nine free 60 to 90 minute webinars that give you the information on how to organize and implement an effective PBSS on the Project ACHIEVE website:
http://www.projectachieve.info/about-project-achieve/webinar-video-archive.html
One of the webinars talks about how to implement school-wide Positive Behavioral Support Systems. Another describes the seven “hit-hit” reasons why students present with challenging behavior. Another describes a multi-tiered intervention system with specific interventions that are linked with specific assessment results.
3. Finally, based on our 30 years of evidence-based experience and success, we pulled the entire PBSS process together in a recently published book (June, 2012) from Corwin Press:
“School Discipline, Classroom Management, and Student Self-Management: A Positive Behavioral Support Implementation Guide”
http://www.corwin.com/books/Book235560
The book addresses classroom management from a student, staff, school, and systems perspective, and it provides step-by-step implementation steps and field-base examples and outcomes from our “lessons learned.”
There are many, many other FREE resources on the Project ACHIEVE website that can help you in the areas of classroom management, PBSS, effective instruction, and school improvement (www.projectachieve.info). For more information or assistance, feel free to e-mail me at any time:
knoffprojectachieve@earthlink.net
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Dr. Howie Knoff
Director, Project ACHIEVE
Director, Arkansas Department of Education State Improvement Grant
Past-President, National Association of School Psychologists
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