Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Breaking: Council of State Governments Tells Schools To End Zero Tolerance Discipline

The artwork for "Discipline", an exa...
The artwork for "Discipline", an example of the geometric shapes of the album's visual design. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)



















Yesterday, the Council of State Governments released a report on school discipline that tells school districts to spare the rod. The report notes that an over reliance by schools on suspensions is fueling the school to prison pipeline.  The report is highly critical of zero tolerance discipline policies.

The School Discipline Consensus Report mentions frequently that kids with disabilities are targeted for school discipline.  Indeed the report emphasizes that children with disabilities are twice as likely as their non-disabled peers to be singled out for school discipline.

The Report was prepared by a team of over 100 policy professionals, educators, behavioral health professionals and justice system professionals. The Report includes sixty recommendations to keep kids in the classroom and out of the courtroom.

If you work in the field of school discipline, you should check out this report.  You can read the entire 436 page report here. Video and press coverage of the report are available here.

I wonder if reforms will follow?
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2 comments:

  1. Our District swears we do not have a zero tolerance policy infraction, school report cards sent home friday, by the following Wednesday Student has Detention, student didnt bring back parent signed report card, Student horseplays with best friend in cafeteria, restricted lunch is given. Student A stopped a student from bullying another student B, student A recieved detention. Student didnt stay after school because parent with disability forgot students medical appointment, given two days detention even though parent forgets. 8Th grade student with disability ( language disability) copies another students home work not understanding cheating and copying are correlated, student with disability gets two days detention, student maintains he did not cheat as of today. He admits to copying just not cheating. And we do not have a zero tolerance policy!

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