Join the thousands of teachers in schools nationwide who have used this positive approach to discipline to establish calm, safe classrooms in which students can do their best learning. The approach to discipline presented in this book helps children develop self-control, understand how positive behavior looks and sounds, and come to value such behavior. With many examples from their own classrooms, three experienced teachers offer practical techniques to help you: establish clear expectations for behavior from day one; teach students how to articulate their learning goals; create classroom rules that connect to those goals; use techniques such as Interactive Modeling to teach positive behavior; reinforce positive behavior with supportive teacher language; and quickly stop misbehavior and restore positive behavior so that children retain their dignity and continue learning.
Educators remove over 3.45 million students from school annually for disciplinary reasons, despite strong evidence that school suspension policies are harmful to students. The research presented in this volume demonstrates that disciplinary policies and practices that schools control directly exacerbate today's profound inequities in educational opportunity and outcomes. Part I explores how suspensions flow along the lines of race, gender, and disability status. Part II examines potential remedies that show great promise, including a district-wide approach in Cleveland, Ohio, aimed at social and emotional learning strategies. Closing the School Discipline Gap is a call for action that focuses on an area in which public schools can and should make powerful improvements, in a relatively short period of time. Contributors include Robert Balfanz, Jamilia Blake, Dewey Cornell, Jeremy D. Finn, Thalia González, Anne Gregory, Daniel J. Losen, David M. Osher, Russell J. Skiba, Ivory A. Toldson “Closing the School Discipline Gap can make an enormous difference in reducing disciplinary exclusions across the country. This book not only exposes unsound practices and their disparate impact on the historically disadvantaged, but provides educators, policymakers, and community advocates with an array of remedies that are proven effective or hold great promise. Educators, communities, and students alike can benefit from the promising interventions and well-grounded recommendations.” —Linda Darling-Hammond, Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education, Stanford University “For over four decades school discipline policies and practices in too many places have pushed children out of school, especially children of color. Closing the School Discipline Gap shows that adults have the power—and responsibility—to change school climates to better meet the needs of children. This volume is a call to action for policymakers, educators, parents, and students.” —Marian Wright Edelman, president, Children’s Defense Fund
Answers the calls of grassroots communities pressing for integration and increased education funding with a complete rethinking of school discipline In the era of zero tolerance, we are flooded with stories about schools issuing draconian punishments for relatively innocent behavior. One student was suspended for chewing a Pop-Tart into the shape of a gun. Another was expelled for cursing on social media from home. Suspension and expulsion rates have doubled over the past three decades as zero tolerance policies have become the normal response to a host of minor infractions that extend well beyond just drugs and weapons. Students from all demographic groups have suffered, but minority and special needs students have suffered the most. On average, middle and high schools suspend one out of four African American students at least once a year. The effects of these policies are devastating. Just one suspension in the ninth grade doubles the likelihood that a student will drop out. Fifty percent of students who drop out are subsequently unemployed. Eighty percent of prisoners are high school drop outs. The risks associated with suspension and expulsion are so high that, as a practical matter, they amount to educational death penalties, not behavioral correction tools. Most important, punitive discipline policies undermine the quality of education that innocent bystanders receive as well—the exact opposite of what schools intend. Derek Black, a former attorney with the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, weaves stories about individual students, lessons from social science, and the outcomes of courts cases to unearth a shockingly irrational system of punishment. While schools and legislatures have proven unable and unwilling to amend their failing policies, Ending Zero Tolerance argues for constitutional protections to check abuses in school discipline and lays out theories by which courts should re-engage to enforce students’ rights and support broader reforms.
Bring positive behavior to your school through strong, consistent, and positive discipline. In Responsive School Discipline two experienced administrators offer practical strategies for building a safe, calm, and respectful school-strategies based on deep respect for children and for staff. Each chapter targets one key discipline issue and starts with a checklist of action steps. For comprehensive discipline reform, go through the chapters in order. For help with a particular challenge, go right to the chapter you need.
Examines the relationship between the law and the school-to-prison pipeline, argues that law can be an effective weapon in the struggle to reduce the number of children caught, and discusses the consequences on families and communities.
This book on Restorative Discipline Practices (RDP) will provide anecdotes and process stories by authors from diverse backgrounds including: classroom teachers, school administrators, campus coordinators, juvenile justice officials, community leaders and university professors.It will be an inspiration and reference for educators as they begin or continue to implement RDP in the schools.
Kupchik shows that security policies lead schools to prioritize the rules instead of students, so that students' real problems--often the very reasons for their misbehavior--get ignored.
Aimed at parents of and advocates for special needs children, explains how to develop a relationship with a school, monitor a child's progress, understand relevant legislation, and document correspondence and conversations.
