Years ago, a groundbreaking review of student data from the 2013-2014 school year indicated that Black students were overrepresented among those experiencing punishment in a variety of contexts. In the intervening decade, new data has emerged, schools have implemented policies to reduce racial disparities, researchers have highlighted new methods…

Restorative justice is an increasingly common discipline policy, as schools grapple with historic inequities in traditional exclusionary discipline. This mixed-methods study examines the implementation of restorative justice in 28 intentionally diverse charter schools in five jurisdictions in the U.S. Qualitative findings suggest a range of…

School exclusion reduction in Scotland--and especially in the city of Glasgow--has received substantial media and policy attention in recent years. In London in particular, multiple governmental agencies have explicitly expressed a desire to replicate the exclusion reduction which recently occurred in Glasgow, often citing the connection between…

In the majority of South African schools, maintaining discipline remains a challenge -- a situation which commands the attention of departmental officials both locally and internationally. When negative disciplinary approaches were prohibited in schools in this country, positive disciplinary measures were recommended in the form of a code of…

How should universities handle cases of student misconduct? While universities cannot make decisions about whether a criminal offence has been committed, they can judge whether there has been a breach of their own code of conduct. This guidance, building on a UUK and Pinsent Mason publication from 2016, sets out principles and practical case…

Rangel, Beulah S. J., At Risk, Punished, and Pushed out of School: Leadership Practices Utilized by School Administrators for Discipline Consequences in South Texas Schools. Doctor of Education (Ed. D.), May 2024The purpose of this study was to examine leadership practices utilized by school administrators for discretionary discipline consequences…

Corporal punishment (CP), or inflicting pain through spanking, hitting, and paddling, is still legally sanctioned and exercised in U.S. schools. We use critical discourse analysis and draw on state policy documents and data from the Office of Civil Rights to investigate which discourses pervade policy texts and how CP is practiced. These sources…

Over the past decade, numerous reports have indicated pervasively high rates of early childhood expulsion nationwide. In response, state and federal policymakers have enacted various measures to ban or reduce reliance on such exclusionary discipline. Prior evaluations of the implementation of one such legislative ban on expulsion enacted in…

Zero tolerance policies in urban schools increased the disparities in urban school discipline for Black youth in comparison to white youth. Restorative interventions continue to be a popular response to deviant student behaviors; however, exploring the impact of restorative interventions in reducing harsh discipline on Black youth should be a…

Expulsion is the harshest form of disciplinary action, and behavior policies are the foundation for this decision-making process. The purpose of this study is to uncover how behavior policies used in early childhood settings describe expulsion practices. Among the 111 early childhood programs in Western Massachusetts that met the search criteria…

Problem behavior disrupts classrooms across the United States, impacting student learning. Despite the adverse consequences, teachers often exclude disruptive students from school as a punitive and default response to problem behavior. Alternatives to exclusion are becoming increasingly popular in many school districts to improve behavior and keep…

Believe-Empathy-Wellness-Empower-Listen-Learn (BE WELL) program offers a promising replacement for traditional punitive suspensions in California schools. Amidst the over 6 million suspensions reported in 2022, this on-campus program fosters self-reflection, academic growth, and life skills within a compassionate and accepting learning…

The purpose of this study was to design and implement a Restorative Practice approach to discipline. The challenges of building a positive teacher-student relationship while navigating the demands of zero-tolerance policies have been well documented. Teachers need support and structure to develop and maintain positive teacher-student…

This study investigates the correlation between student expulsions due to the zero-tolerance discipline policy and dropout rates in the East Baton Rouge Parish School System (EBRPSS), focusing on students in grades 9-12 from 2015 to 2022. Additionally, it examines potential disparities in dropout rates between the northern and southern regions of…

Very limited research exists regarding the beliefs and practices of student support teams (SSTs), sometimes called child study teams or IEP teams, in settings with non-expulsion policies for young children with severely challenging behaviors. Previous research examined teacher and administrator beliefs and practices and found that they engage in…