suspension

"In considering different strategies for promoting productive and safe school environments, it can be difficult to know what works and what doesn’t. In particular, longstanding debates about zero tolerance policies leave many people confused about the bas ...

All children and youth have a human right to quality public education in safe and supportive learning environments. Such an education provides a foundation for access to higher education, meaningful employment and full participation in society. Although a ...

A well implemented early warning system can help educators and others identify students at risk of dropping out and assign and monitor interventions to keep them on track for graduation. This guide describes and provides examples of early warning system ...

Excerpt: This resource is intended to help educators understand how they might address the interplay of race and trauma and its effects on students in the classroom. After defining key terms, the guide outlines recommendations for educators and offers ...

New data from the Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) estimates that over 3 million students are suspended or expelled every year, with minorities and special needs students often facing harsher discipline than their peers for the same offenses. Such excl ...

On August 25th, 2015 at the SFUSD Board of Education (BOE) meeting, Kevin Truitt, Chief of Student, Family & Community Support, along with Thomas Graven, Executive Director, and a number of other staff from the department, walked BOE commissioners and par ...

On October 23, 2007, a 14-year-old boy at the Kennedy Middle School in Springfield, Massachusetts, was arrested after he refused to walk with a teacher to her office and instead returned to his classroom. According to the police report, he yelled at the t ...

Excerpt: School-based police officers, known as school resource officers (SROs), have become a common and growing presence in schools across the nation. The presence of law enforcement in school, while intended to increase school safety, has also been ...

THE CODE OF CONDUCT is based upon the laws, rules, regulations, and policies that seek to allow access to education for all while protecting the due process rights of the individual. Discipline, as defined by the Code, must have the qualities of understan ...

The Council of State Governments (CSG) released a groundbreaking report, Breaking Schools’ Rules, in 2011, which documented the negative impacts that suspension or expulsion from Texas public schools have on students. The CSG report revealed a large “huma ...

The “school to prison pipeline” is a phenomenon that has occurred over the last few decades as school systems have increasingly relied upon zero tolerance policies and law enforcement to manage discipline in schools, resulting in rising incidents of suspe ...

There has been a growing interest in placing sworn law enforcement officers in schools as School Resource Officers (SROs) as a means of improving school safety and improving relations between police officers and youth. However, when this project began in ...

Research suggests that approximately 25% of American children will experience at least one traumatic event by the age of 16. A child's reactions to trauma can interfere considerably with learning and/or behavior at school. However, schools also serve as a ...

This guide was written to educate policymakers about the scope and impact of childhood trauma, to offer effective solutions that can be implemented with the support of informed public policy, and to provide information about additional resources. The Nati ...

Juvenile courts nationwide handle cases referred by schools for truancy or behavioral incidents. Since 2012, the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ) have trained jurisdictions on strategies and policies to reduce the number of re ...

The term complex trauma describes the dual problem of children’s exposure to traumatic events and the impact of this exposure on immediate and long-term outcomes. Complex traumatic exposure refers to children’s experiences of multiple traumatic events th ...

This webinar will focus on strategies to support policymakers, school and district administrators, educators and other adults in the school building in improving school climate and minimizing the use of suspensions and expulsions. Recommendations focus on ...

This manual summarizes the major activities of the Connecticut School-Based Diversion Initiative (SBDI); an initiative funded by a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The manual is intended to aid communities in developing their ...

Excerpt: Communities of color have a long-standing history of inequitable treatment by the police in the U.S. In recent years, activists with the Black Lives Matter movement have helped to raise the profile of the destructive treatment of the black comm ...

High rates of suspensions and expulsions are daunting problems affecting many California schools. In part, these rates are the result of Zero Tolerance policies enacted in the early 1990s to improve school safety. Although Zero Tolerance policies original ...

In the past decade, there has been a growing convergence between schools and legal systems. The school to prison pipeline refers to this growing pattern of tracking students out of educational institutions, primarily via “zero tolerance” policies, and , d ...

This report examines how the involvement of the criminal justice system in school discipline policies and practices causes deprivations of human rights for children in four key areas: the right to be free from discrimination, the right to education, the r ...

Disparities in the use of school discipline by race, gender, and sexual orientation have been well-documented and continue to place large numbers of students at risk for short- and long-term negative outcomes. In order to improve the state of our knowledg ...

While the extent of and reasons for disciplinary disparities have been well documented for at least the last 40 years, a number of inaccurate assumptions and myths remain popular but lack research support. This fact sheet describes many of the most common ...

"This report aims to make transparent the rates at which school discipline practices and policies impact Black students in every K-12 public school district in 13 Southern states: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nor ...

Throughout the 1990s, the rise of zero-tolerance school discipline policies resulted in the widespread adoption of strict and mandatory responses for a large range of misbehavior in school. An unintended consequence of these policies and practices were yo ...

In the past decade, there has been a growing convergence between schools and legal systems. The school to prison pipeline refers to this growing pattern of tracking students out of educational institutions, primarily via ―zero tolerance‖ policies, and , d ...

Fueled by increasingly punitive approaches to student behavior such as “zero tolerance policies,” the past 20 years have seen an expansion in the presence of law enforcement, including school resource officers (SROs), in schools. According to the U.S. Dep ...

In 2005-2006, juvenile justice professionals in Pennsylvania’s 67 counties were assessed to determine their current aftercare practices. As a result of this assessment, this Toolkit was written in 2006 to address one of their main areas of concern: helpin ...

Discipline in schools, when appropriately used, can help to create structure and establish rules for a well-functioning classroom and school. All students should feel safe, and have a positive environment in which to learn. The underlying empirical data s ...

Every young person has the human right to a high quality education and to learn in a safe, respectful school environment that protects human dignity. Research has shown that punitive, zero-tolerance approaches to discipline do not prevent or reduce misbe ...

Disciplining students, particularly those with chronic or serious behavior problems, is a longstanding challenge for educators. They must balance the needs of the school community and those of the individual student. At the heart of this challenge is the ...

In the nine years since Congress reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) as the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), startling growth has occurred in what is often described as the “School-to-Prison Pipeline”1 – the use of educational p ...

During the 2013-2014 academic year, California schools issued more suspensions than diplomas. Among suspended and expelled students, glaring racial disparities are apparent. Overwhelming numbers of students who have been suspended or expelled from school ...

AASA, The School Superintendents Association, and the Children’s Defense Fund (CDF) believe that all schools should be warm, welcoming and productive places for children to learn and for teachers to teach. We believe that exclusionary discipline – suspend ...

This report presents the findings and recommendations of the Youth Justice Board, an after school program that engages New York City teenagers in studying public policy issues that affect young people. Since August 2012, the Youth Justice Board has focuse ...

In the name of public safety, Black children in Oakland are being arrested at vastly disproportionate rates. This derails their opportunities for educational success while failing to ensure our children’s safety. From Report Card to Criminal Record: The I ...

This High School Early Warning Intervention Monitoring System (EWIMS) Implementation Guide is a supporting document for schools and districts that are implementing an early warning system or, specifically, the National High School Center’s Early Warning S ...

In the wake of the tragic shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, communities, advocates, and policymakers across the country are proposing and already implementing different ways to address gun violence in our society—such as passing new gun control me ...

The number of students issued suspensions in U.S. schools continues to be extremely high, resulting in thousands of students missing school every day. Simultaneously, disparities in school suspension continue to worsen, indicating that students in some gr ...

The federal guidance released in January by the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education on school discipline policies was necessary to advise school districts of their responsibilities under the Civil Rights Act to protect children from discrimination. ...

Learning is not just a cognitive process. Research shows that powerful social and emotional factors affect learning. Some of these factors involve social relationships. These social factors include the teacher's relationship with the student, the student' ...

Last week, Attorney General Eric Holder and Education Secretary Arne Duncan issued the first ever national guidelines for school discipline in public schools, in an effort to keep more students in class and reduce racial disparities in punishment. The fed ...

Our nation’s schools should be safe havens for teaching and learning free of crime and violence. Any instance of crime or violence at school not only affects the individuals involved but also may disrupt the educational process and affect bystanders, the ...

The zero tolerance policies that were adopted by many local and state education agencies in the 1990s had the unintended effect of unnecessarily introducing low-risk youth to the juvenile justice system for disruptive behaviors that are very typical of ad ...

The most disadvantaged, troubled students in the South and the nation attend schools in the juvenile justice systems. These children, mostly teenagers, usually are behind in school, possess substantial learning disabilities, exhibit recognizable behavior ...

As the education of our children – our nation’s future – and the school-justice connection has increasingly captured public attention, the sunshine of increased graduation rates has brought into sharp focus the shadow of the so-called school-to-prison pip ...

Excerpt: The “school-to-prison pipeline,” a term that has garnered a great deal of attention in recent years, describes the direct link between exclusionary school discipline practices and students’ subsequent involvement in the juvenile justice syste ...

Excerpt from website As a result of the growing body of evidence demonstrating the alarming relationship between widespread school suspensions and expulsions and involvement in the justice system, today’s schools, courts, and communities require new ...

As a result of the growing body of evidence demonstrating the alarming relationship between widespread school suspensions and expulsions and involvement in the justice system, today’s schools, courts, and communities require new thinking about how to posi ...

The last twenty years have seen a remarkable increase in the criminalization of American schools and students. What officially began in 1994 with the signing of the federal Gun Free School Zone’s Act (GFSA), has escalated from a series of reforms intende ...

There has been a growing interest in placing sworn police officers in schools as SROs to improve school safety. However, when this project began in May 2000, little was known about SRO programs (appendix A identifies the principal published and selected u ...

Since first identified by the Children's Defense Fund nearly 40 years ago, researchers have consistently documented African American disproportionality in a range of exclusionary discipline practices including office disciplinary referrals, suspensions, e ...

Our children attend Chicago Public Schools, and in 2003 we came together —African-American and Latino parents and grandparents—around shared experiences and concerns. Our schools have one of the highest rates of suspension in the nation, and African-Ameri ...

For schools and districts across the U.S., family engagement (1) is rapidly shifting from a low-priority recommendation to an integral part of education reform efforts. Family engagement has long been enshrined in policy at the federal level through Title ...

Exert: "As state policymakers strive to provide students with equal educational opportunities, they must look beyond test scores and graduation rates to assess the school environment more broadly, and particularly the role of discipline policies and p ...

The Office of Special Education (OSEP) Technical Assistance Center for PBIS, was established by the OSEP, U.S. Department of Education to give schools capacity-building information and technical assistance for identifying, adapting, and sustaining effecti ...

Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports is an evidence-based way for schools to improve student behavior and establish a positive school culture - and when discipline improves, grades and test scores improve as well. PBIS pulls together research-ba ...

Historically, most educators have recognized two primary aims of school discipline: (a) managing student behavior, relying primarily on the use of teacher‐centered techniques for preventing and correcting misbehavior and (b) developing self‐discipline, co ...

The Council of State Governments (CSG) Justice Center has released a new report "Realizing the Full Vision of School Discipline Reform: A Framework for Statewide Change," which documents how five states have reduced their reliance on suspensions while mov ...

This chapter will address the excessive use of suspensions and other disciplinary actions against Black males who are disengaged from school. Academically disengaged students often come to school late, miss assignments, have difficulty understanding schoo ...

Many schools across the United States have enacted zero tolerance philosophy in response to perceived increases in violence and drugs in schools. It is believed that aggressive and unwavering punishment of many school infractions, including relatively min ...

WHEREAS: San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) believes strongly in creating a District-wide, positive, relationship-based culture that is supportive of all members of the SFUSD community and has been a statewide leader in initiating policies to s ...

"Oakland unified is no different than many urban districts struggling with the repercussions of zero-tolerance policies and related teacher and staff practices that for decades have failed our students of color. The complex web of policies, practices and ...

Humans are born to learn, but we don’t learn in isolation. We learn based on positive relationships and interactions with peers and in environments like schools that foster opportunities for students and staff to learn and grow together. Educators recogni ...

In February of 2015, Mayor Bill de Blasio launched the Leadership Team on School Climate and Discipline—a one-year task force charged with developing policy recommendations to enhance the well-being and safety of students and staff in the City’s public sc ...

The report that follows has been supported by a grant from the U.S. Department of Defense. While it draws on research and examples from public schools across America, the issues of school connectedness have special salience for children who have one or b ...

The NCJFCJ has published this guide as part of a larger project addressing school discipline referrals to the juvenile justice system. The project aims to reduce the number of referrals to the juvenile justice system for school based behaviors through the ...

The NCJFCJ has published a Technical Assistance Bulletin on the School Pathways to the Juvenile Justice System: A Context for a Practice Guide for Courts and Schools as part of a larger project addressing school discipline referrals to the juvenile justic ...

As scrutiny of the relationship between law enforcement agencies and the communities they're charged with protecting continues – heightened following the deaths of Michael Brown, Eric Garner and Tamir Rice, among others, at the hands of police – some are ...

Youth courts, also called teen courts or student courts, handle cases involving young people referred by schools, parents, law enforcement, and other criminal justice agencies. Schools are increasingly adopting youth courts to use in place of detention a ...

Farmington, CT – Four Connecticut schools were selected as partners in the Connecticut School-Based Diversion Initiative (SBDI) for the 2013-2014 school year. SBDI is an interagency state and local partnership supported by the Connecticut Judicial Branch, ...

In 2008, the new Mental Health/Juvenile Justice Action Network selected “early diversion” as its first area of focus. Its goal was to create opportunities for youth with mental health needs to be diverted as early as possible from involvement with the juv ...

The Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office) funded the School-Based Partnerships (SBP) grant program for the purpose of partnering law enforcement agencies with schools to address crime and disorder problems in and around middle and h ...

The Children’s Defense Fund’s report, Suspensions: Are They Helping Children? first brought the issue of racial disparities in discipline to national attention. African American over-representation in out-of-school suspensions has increased steadily from ...

Many students across the Nation struggle with emotional and behavioral problems that may lead them to act out in ways that school administrators and teachers might not understand or be prepared to respond to effectively. In today’s era of highstakes testi ...

In the early 1990s, many schools adopted zero tolerance policies, which mandate the use of specific disciplinary consequences—often severe and punitive—in an effort to increase school safety. Originally designed to reduce weapon-carrying in schools, these ...

Ironically, zero tolerance policies once promoted as a solution to youth violence have created a school to prison pipeline. Widespread discipline practices of suspension, expulsion, and arrest for school behavior problems are turning kids in conflict int ...

Effective school resource officer (SRO) programs recognize and utilize the special training and expertise law enforcement officers possess that is well suited to effectively protect and serve the school community. SROs contribute to the school safety t ...

Prior to the passage of the Gun Free Zone Act of 1994 (GFZA), school administrators and educators were largely responsible for addressing students' misbehavior in school. However, since the implementation of GFZA, there has been an increasing number of sc ...

Exert: This document provides answers to frequently asked questions on the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act and the education rights of children and youth in homeless situations, based on the amendments made by the Every Student Succee ...

This toolkit provides a step-by-step guide for implementing some of the core principles and activities of the full SBDI initiative. A simple-to-use checklist is included to guide you through implementation of key SBDI elements. There are self-assessment q ...

Millions of U.S. public school students in grades K‒12 are suspended or expelled in an academic school year, particularly students in middle and high school.2 Research demonstrates that when students are removed from the classroom as a disciplinary measur ...

RESEARCH AND DATA ON SCHOOL DISCIPLINE practices are clear: millions of students are being removed from their classrooms each year, mostly in middle and high schools, and overwhelmingly for minor misconduct. When suspended, these students are at a signif ...

Across Colorado and the country, there is more attention on school discipline issues and the "school-to-prison pipeline" than ever before. The overuse of out-of-school suspensions, expulsions, police tickets, and school-based arrests – particularly for St ...

The impact of students’ life experiences on their behavior has garnered increasing attention as schools strive to develop more supportive academic environments that address the needs of at-risk youth and facilitate continued academic engagement. Few event ...

The story is very sad and way too familiar. Ryan, a third­grader who lives in a San Francisco housing project, watched his father beat up his mother one night, something he’d witnessed since infancy. His dad was arrested, his mom was taken off in an am ...

Excerpt from website This Webinar provides the knowledge that school, district, and court staff, law enforcement and legal personnel, youth, families, and other community stakeholders need to better understand how the use of youth courts in schools c ...

Excerpt: "Suspensions, expulsions, and school-based arrests are used too often in our schools and disproportionately impact students of color. According to data from the U.S. Department of Education, during the 2013-2014 school year, Black K-12 studen ...

Throughout the United States violent crime has seen a marked reduction—reports of violent crime have decreased from 1.4 million in 2007 to 1.2 million in 2011. In the past few years, a growing awareness in high percentage rates of the detention of mentall ...

Columbine High School, Littleton, Colorado. Heath High School, West Paducah, Kentucky.3 Westside Middle School, Jonesboro, Arkansas. Zero tolerance policies5 were adopted in these schools and around the country in response to tragic school shooting eve ...