Although metal detectors, guards, and law enforcement officers are intended to protect students and maintain a safe educational environment, the actual effectiveness of such measures is unclear, especially when it comes to protecting Black students. Charles Bell interviewed Black students from urban and suburban schools across Michigan and learned…

Across the country, many schools have adopted restorative practices in an effort to improve school climate and student outcomes while reducing exclusionary discipline. Restorative practices are designed to proactively build community, improve relationships, and help students amend harm when conflict occurs. Using 6 years of student survey data and…

The Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) is a biennial survey required by the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights since 1968. This survey measures factors that impact education equity and opportunity for students, including student access to courses, programs, resources, instructional and other staff -- and school climate factors.…

As advocates for children and youth with exceptionalities, the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) recognizes the influence a safe and positive school and community climate has on meeting the promises made in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). The CEC is committed to upholding the dignity and worth of all individuals with…

The use of exclusionary discipline practices in schools has been well documented since the 1970s with the passing of the Safe Schools Act and implementation of zero-tolerance policies. Despite research indicating the ineffectiveness of exclusionary practices, students continue to receive suspensions and expulsions at alarming rates. Additional…

As awareness has grown about the harmful effects of exclusionary discipline, especially on the Black and Brown students who are disproportionately suspended and expelled, so, too, has interest in alternative approaches to discipline. Restorative practices focus on building or repairing relationships to address or preempt conflict. They are based…

This article demonstrates how (bad) girl performances rupture the inherently violent logic undergirding exclusionary discipline through the schooling experiences of five Black girls on probation. In so doing, it reveals a clear need for the abolition of suspension, expulsion and school-based arrest and relays a new focus on freedom dreaming for…

The Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) is a mandatory survey of all public schools and school districts in the 50 states, Washington, D.C., and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. It gathers information about student access to educational programs, activities, staff, and school climate factors from public schools serving students in preschool…

Across public and private settings, about 250 preschoolers are suspended or expelled each day, according to a Center for American Progress analysis of the 2016 National Survey of Children's Health (Malik, 2017). The U.S. Department of Education's Civil Rights Data Collection has exposed serious inequities in exclusionary discipline practices.…

This special issue of "School Psychology Review," entitled "Closing in on Discipline Disproportionality" examined promising approaches and critical issues related to the challenge of closing racial and ethnic gaps in schools' use of exclusionary and punitive discipline practices. In this introductory paper, we briefly reviewed…

This report provides a brief overview of Culturally Responsive Restorative Practices, an innovative framework intended to address discipline disparities and improve school climate and culture at ten Austin Independent School District (AISD) schools. This work is part of a 5-year, $3.5 million Education Innovation and Research (EIR) grant from the…

Though there is extensive research on the health outcomes of individuals who have experienced adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), society at large has not embraced this ground-breaking research and many still believe that the use of harsh punishment for students provides the same intended result as a discipline approach that teaches coping…

Safety and school culture are both reinforced through a school's disciplinary system. However, when disciplinary action is decided, it would be remiss to assume that the choices made are always objective. A wide range of student needs and behaviors may present themselves in any given school classroom, and at times, the student or family…

Policies that encourage police presence at schools, harsh tactics including physical restraint, and automatic punishments that result in suspensions and out-of-class time are huge contributors to the school-to-prison pipeline, but the problem is more complex than that. The school-to-prison pipeline starts (or is best avoided) in the classroom.…

Annually, the Department of Education (Department) collects data from school districts across the state on disciplinary infractions and their consequences. These data are analyzed in a state-level report developed by the Department for the Governor and the Legislature to fulfill the requirements of the "Public School Safety Law N.J.S.A."…