Discipline

One of the results of the heightened concern about school safety is increased attention to school discipline as a factor in ensuring safe and orderly schools. Disruptive behavior in schools not only poses safety problems when incidents involve weapon possession, violence, or substance use, but also interferes with instructional efforts by teachers and with learning conditions for students. The most common understanding of the term school discipline involves punishment of student misbehavior by removal from the classroom or the school (i.e., office referrals, suspensions, and expulsions). School removal rates have been used as an indicator of safe and orderly school campuses. In the 1999 National Center for Education Statistics report, a high association was found between principal perceptions of discipline problems and school crime statistics. Within and between districts, higher numbers of disciplinary incidents are associated with higher rates of misbehavior. As well, there is an assumption that fighting and aggressive behavior can escalate into more violent events, and even nonviolent forms of student misbehavior can lead to unsafe school environments. High numbers of suspensions also have been associated with negative academic indicators such as grade retention, dropping out of school, alienation from school, juvenile delinquency, and drug use.

More recently, attention has been drawn to so-called low-level violence, or incidents of behavior, such as bullying, peer sexual harassment, and victimization. Chronic bullying has been characterized as a contributor to disturbed mental status and to the potential for retaliatory, aggressive, and perhaps violent behavior. As a result of greater awareness of the negative impact of incidents of low-level violence, such behaviors have been added to lists of suspendable offenses, along with more physical forms of threat and aggression. Zero-tolerance policies have taken disciplinary policies to an extreme, broadening the scope of exclusion to behavior that, although related, may not be associated with greater likelihood of violence and disorder (e.g., plastic knifes, ibuprofen tablets—interpreted as a ‘substance’ being abused). These changes in school discipline policy are indicative of concern about behaviors that threaten psychological and developmental safety as well as physical safety.

Despite the recent association of school discipline with safe and orderly schools, historically, school discipline has included a broader range of practices that includes prevention of misbehavior, remediation of behavioral problems, and exclusion as a punishment for severe forms of misbehavior. The Latin root of the word discipline is actually from the verb ‘to learn.’ Thus, the broader conception of school discipline as an opportunity to teach positive behavior is in keeping with the roots of the terminology. This entry reviews the most recent trends in school discipline: It describes the process of zero tolerance as reflected in the indices of office referrals, suspensions, and expulsions; describes which students are being disciplined; and reviews best practices for implementation of [Page 250]discipline practices that focus on the broader conception of discipline as an opportunity to learn.