This guide is designed to supply educators with a means to identify whether racial/ethnic disproportionality in discipline practice exists in their schools or districts. It also aims to help educators use data to reduce racial/ethnic disproportionality in suspensions and expulsions. The guide is organized into two sections. The first section…

The causal link between educational exclusion and criminalization of youth is called the "school-to-prison pipeline." This is a byproduct of "zero tolerance" polices that have been widely discredited by research (APA, 2008; Skiba, 2014). However, these practices are still widespread in the United States and have been exported…

A California high school develops a Student Justice Panel to hear student concerns about violations of the student code, providing students with a way to not just have a voice but to effect change in how students are disciplined. Restorative justice gives students a feeling of fairness and responsibility for appropriate behavior. Restorative…

Data from middle schools (n = 219), high schools (n = 200), and combined middle and high schools (n = 20) were used to examine individual- and school-level factors within a multilevel model associated with an increased risk of suspension for minority students and students with disabilities. Results indicate that the individual-level variables of…

Students need a safe and supportive school environment to maximize their academic and social-emotional learning potential. A school's discipline policies and practices directly impact school climate and student achievement. Together, discipline policies and positive school climate efforts can reinforce behavioral expectations and ensure student…

With the federal government increasingly ceding authority to states in a revamped Every Student Succeeds Act, many states are looking for new ways to positively influence local work and take on greater leadership. States can--and should--play a more active role in fostering collaboration efforts if they are serious about ensuring quality public…

This report provides nationally representative data on public school safety and discipline for the 2013-14 school year. The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) previously collected data on this topic in the School Survey on Crime and Safety (SSOCS), which was last conducted in the 2009-10 school year (Neiman 2011). This report presents…

This report describes the occurrence of discipline referrals and corresponding interventions and consequences used by schools for "harassment," "intimidation," or "bullying" behaviors during the 2013-2014 school year. Using data entered into the West Virginia Education Information System (WVEIS), the authors conducted…

Independence Day School is a small college preparatory school serving grades 9-12, in rural Illinois. As part of its commitment to creating a safe school for all students, it adopted a "safe zone" classrooms policy. The policy states that classrooms where conversation about homosexuality is permitted are marked with inverted pink…

This study presents findings from an ethnographic content analysis of 15 chronological district-wide annual codes of student conduct from a large urban US school district. I frame policy creation and modification processes as reflections of societal shifts in perceptions of student behaviors. I looked to the policy documents to explore the…

Disciplining students with disabilities has been a controversial issue among school officials, parents, and other members of school communities for many years. Federal law guiding administrative practice is codified in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 2004 (IDEA), a lengthy, cumbersome, and sometimes difficult to understand…

Considerable research on African American males (AAMs) in American schools over the past ten years shows that they are underrepresented in every positive measure of educational outcomes, and overrepresented in every negative measure. Many educators have developed low expectations, deficit thinking, and implicit biases toward AAMs and their…

Successful school leadership is highly contextually dependent. However, few studies focused on the comparisons of school leadership across different countries. Even among the existing studies, comparisons tend to be conducted with the assumption that the underlying factorial structure of the construct is the same. In this study, school principal's…

In recent decades, K-12 school discipline policies and practices have garnered increasing attention among researchers, policymakers, and educators. Disproportionalities in school discipline raise serious questions about educational equity. This study provides a comprehensive review of the extant literature on the contributors to racial, gender,…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of school discipline in achieving academic performance. The study aims to clarify the role of permissive "vis-à-vis" authoritative teaching styles with an overarching hypothesis that better discipline leads to better academic performance. The authors also probe whether uniformed…