Purpose: Over the past decade, increasing attention to the negative impacts of exclusionary discipline and disparities therein has led many state educational leaders to enact school discipline reforms. This study examined the response by school district leadership to a state's revision of guidelines for student codes of conduct. Data: This study…

Nationwide, school principals are given wide discretion to use disciplinary tools like suspension and expulsion to create a safe learning environment. There is legitimate concern that this power can have negative consequences, particularly for the students who are excluded. This study uses linked disciplinary, education, and criminal justice…

This report presents the findings from the National Behaviour Survey (NBS) Academic Year 2023-24. The NBS is designed to provide the Department for Education with termly survey data related to pupil behaviour in state-funded primary, secondary and special schools in England collected from multiple respondent groups (school leaders, teachers,…

Within neoliberal education systems, elements of marketisation are endemic and this brings with it the invasive pressures of performativity. Against this backdrop, discipline in schools is in many instances being more closely monitored and tightly controlled, with the implementation of strict and in some cases 'zero-tolerance' behaviour management…

While research shows that exclusionary discipline practices in the early years are ineffective and developmentally inappropriate, young children continue to be suspended and expelled at high rates. An increasing number of states have taken steps to ensure that young children are not removed from programs due to their behavior. This report explores…

School disciplinary practices affect student academic and life outcomes. Many schools have recently shifted towards the prevention of behavioral disorders rather than the punishment of such disorders, but disciplinary actions are still disproportionately meted out to Black students. We took advantage of a natural experiment in a large school…

Black men and women have different levels of average educational attainment, yet few studies have focused on explaining how and why these patterns develop. One explanation may be inequality in experiences with institutional punishment through exclusionary school discipline and criminal justice exposure. Drawing on intersectional frameworks and…

The problem investigated is that high discipline referrals in schools serving at-risk high school students often lead to student attrition and lack of academic success. A qualitative methodology with a narrative research design was employed/utilized to investigate the impact of high discipline referring in schools in Alabama, including the…

Developmentally and culturally appropriate program behavior policies that are clearly communicated and implemented successfully can prevent exclusion and positively impact teachers, children, and families. However, it is unclear if policies are high quality or designed to equitably support positive behavior. We examined behavior policies from 41…

Reflecting an overall policy shift in Oregon and nationwide, Oregon passed laws in 2013 and 2015 aimed at changing the way school discipline is applied in grades K-12. The 2013 legislation directed districts to replace zero-tolerance policies with an emphasis on preventing and reducing unnecessary student suspensions and expulsions. Suspensions…

Discipline reformers claim that suspensions negatively affect suspended students, while others suggest reforms have unintended consequences for peers. Using student panel data from the School District of Philadelphia, we implement student fixed effects and instrumental variable (IV) strategies to examine the consequences of suspensions for…

Despite frequent political and policy debates, the effects of imposing accountability pressures on public school teachers are empirically indeterminate. In this paper, we study the effects of accountability in the context of teacher responses to student behavioral infractions in the aftermath of teacher evaluation reforms. We leverage cross-state…

This research describes the application of improvement science focusing on implementing restorative practices (RP) to decrease suspension and expulsion rates of Black students. Black students are suspended and expelled disproportionately compared to their White peers in South Carolina. Due to the high suspension and expulsion rates, school…

Building on comprehensive research conducted in US schools, this accessible volume offers an effective model of school leadership to develop and implement school-wide, trauma-responsive approaches to student discipline. Recognizing that challenging student behaviours are often rooted in early experiences of trauma, the volume builds on a model…

School psychologists are expected to engage in crisis-related work in the school setting and to participate on crisis teams. Research has indicated that school psychologists are meeting this charge and are involved in crisis planning, prevention, and intervention. However, most of the research examining the role of the school psychologist in…