Since the early 1990s, American schools adopted exclusionary sanctions such as zero-tolerance policies (ZTP) to reduce student misbehavior as well as to sustain school safety. Due to the punitive nature of ZTP, some schools have sought alternative discipline models, like the restorative practices, to manage student infraction. This mixed methods…

As the number of charter schools continues to grow, one facet of their autonomy--the ability to set and enforce independent disciplinary standards--has raised difficult questions about whether those schools are pushing out students who pose behavior or academic challenges and how their policies affect regular public schools. Research on the issue…

A trenchant and wide-ranging look at this alarming national trend, "Disrupting the School-to-Prison Pipeline" is unsparing in its account of the problem while pointing in the direction of meaningful and much-needed reforms. The "school-to-prison pipeline" has received much attention in the education world over the past few…

This study explored administrators' attitudes about the use of physical restraint in their school settings. Administrators of day treatment and residential programs for elementary students with emotional and behavioral disorders in the Mid-Atlantic states were surveyed on their attitudes toward, and the use of, physical restraint within their…

A discipline code developed by the staff at the National Center for the Study of Corporal Punishment and Alternatives in the schools is outlined. Development of the code was preceded by a survey of teachers and administrators on their perceptions of pressing discipline issues. The issues selected from the survey were resubmitted to the teachers…

Designed to assist New Jersey school districts in developing and implementing student codes of conduct, this document begins by examining the need for policy and clearly established rules, the rationale for codes of conduct, and the areas that such codes should address. Following a discussion of substantive and procedural rights and sources of…

To be both fair and effective, student discipline law and policy must balance two separate rights of students: the constitutional right to a public education, and the right to a safe and orderly learning environment. Procedures and laws to protect students from arbitrary and wrongful discipline are necessary, as are procedures and laws to allow…