Discipline in Schools

Discipline in schools is often defined as school/state pupil control measures. Discipline is a product of training that produces specific character or behavior grounded in some moral or mental improvement. In schools as in society or any organized social environment, people have to agree upon some standard, behavior, or rules of interaction. Public schools form a society that is organized to transmit society's culture. Schools are societies of large numbers, mostly minors, who come together every day for 180 days a year to train to become literate citizens. School environments are efficiently and effectively governed and managed to produce tomorrow's citizens. Schools manage students today who will be good citizens tomorrow; consequently, the state and the school have come up with discipline policies or rules of behavior for students. In participatory school governance, parents and sometimes even students have a voice in the development of the rules that govern student discipline.

In the era of zero tolerance, states have developed elaborate discipline policies that define every infraction for which a student may or must be removed from school. The 1994 Gun-Free Schools Act provided the impetus for mandatory student expulsions and suspensions by conditioning federal aid to the schools upon the state's adoption of policies for 1 year to remove students who bring weapons to school and a policy to report these students to law enforcement authorities. States require that local districts define every level of discipline infraction and the actions that school administrators may or must take in the district student code of conduct. Most schools are also required to develop a student code of conduct, which is distributed to each parent. For example, a large urban district in Texas establishes district expectations in student behavior, student responsibilities, student rights, district policies, student misconduct, and five levels of student misconduct and consequences. Level 1 acts are violations of classroom rules that can be corrected by the teacher. Level 2 acts are more serious offenses that require administrative intervention. Level 3 acts are serious disruptions of the educational process and lead to suspension or optional removal from the classroom and the school into a disciplinary alternative educational program on or off the home campus. Level 4 offenses are criminal offenses that require removal to an off-campus disciplinary alternative education program. Level 5 offenses are the most [Page 294]severe misconduct offenses and require expulsion to a disciplinary alternative education program or to a juvenile justice program.

In the post-Columbine era of zero tolerance, issues of student behavior, like persistent misbehavior, have become grounds for student removal. Issues of persistent misbehavior, cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, guns, and teen violence have motivated state juvenile agents to cross over from state juvenile crime governance to school crime governance. In some states, the state family code requires that student information and a statement of the alleged delinquent conduct be reported to the county juvenile board. State family code may also require that no students be expelled without notifying the county juvenile board. State education codes have provided designated “law and order” sections to cover issues of school discipline.

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