Schoolwide Discipline

The need for effective schoolwide discipline programs is growing dramatically, in large part because of the need to prevent and respond to acts of school violence. For example, a study by the California Department of Education showed that when comparing statewide data [Page 1497]taken from the 1999–2000 and 2000–2001 school years, physical assaults (batteries) increased by 18%, drug sales by 32%, graffiti by 10%, and vandalism costs by 8%.

Another reason for the need to implement effective schoolwide discipline programs is that educators are expected to cope with increasing student diversity that is associated with levels of cognitive functioning, differences in ethnic and linguistic backgrounds, and types and rates of problem behaviors. Similarly, emphases on instructional standards, integration of students with diverse needs, and doing “more with less” make teaching extremely difficult. As a result of these and other factors, student classroom disruptions often interfere with teaching, as evidenced by the following national research findings:

• Teachers spend as much as 54% of classroom time managing student misbehavior.
• Students spend as little as 17% of their classroom time actively engaged in academic activities.
• Educators can expect to observe behavioral difficulties in more than 20% of the school population.
• From 1992 to 1998, student classroom misbehavior consistently interrupted teaching in 85% to 90% of eighth-grade classrooms and from 56% to 66% in 12th-grade classrooms.

Thus it is not surprising that researchers have reported that the single most persistent and common assistance request from teachers is for help in managing problem behaviors.

Classroom disruptions, then, remain prevalent and erode the educational and learning opportunities of many students. The fact is that unsafe learning environments interfere with both teaching and learning. Given these classroom and school conditions, schools must adopt effective schoolwide discipline systems, which are defined as the proactive and reactive structures, routines, strategies, and organizations of the school that actively prevent occurrences of antisocial behavior in schools and society and effectively promote environments conducive to teaching and learning.

What can schools do to help reverse this trend of unsafe schools and establish effective schoolwide discipline systems? The response is to begin with the adoption of effective schoolwide strategies and systems, which include the following features:

• Developing an effective schoolwide organizational system that gives priority to the prevention of the development and occurrence of problem behaviors
• Identifying and remediating those factors that contribute to the occurrence of student antisocial behavior
• Developing and teaching rules for expected behaviors
• Implementing schoolwide positive behavior interventions and supports that emphasize behavior instruction
• Providing ongoing training and support for those responsible for implementing interventions