The use of exclusionary discipline practices in schools has continued to increase since the advent of Zero Tolerance discipline policies in the 1990s. Research indicates that these practices are largely ineffective in addressing behavior, and result in detrimental outcomes for students and communities. This study focused on the use of Disciplinary…

The school-to-prison pipeline has been an ongoing phenomenon for many decades that disproportionately and negatively impacts students of color. Due to research suggesting school principals play a critical role in the student disciplinary decision-making process, the present study aimed to better understand how principals make discipline decisions…

The education field has long wrestled with how to best handle students who behave badly. Specifically, students who behave in an unsafe manner towards other students present a special conundrum and the traditional response has been to suspend them (Adams, 2000; Black, 2016; Cerrone, 1999; Fabelo et al., 2011; Rumberger et al.,2016). The purpose of…

Social-Emotional Learning (SEL), the process of developing and utilizing interpersonal skills for everyday life, has become a primary vehicle for structuring students' social and emotional health in the United States and across the world. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the importance of understanding SEL practices, is increasingly at the…

Community School 53 has seen a significant increase in suspension rates over the past five years. The suspension rate in 2018-2019 was 5.04%; during the 2019-2020 school year the rate was 8.11%. There is no data from the school year 2020-2021 due to COVID-19. The suspension rate rose drastically in 2021-2022 to 18.10%, and it was at 17.62% for the…

The purpose of this study was to examine the Problem of Practice (POP) to determine if Restorative Practices (RP) can have an impact on the disproportionality of out of school suspensions (OSS) for Black and Multi-Race students at Eastern High School. RP has emerged as a promising intervention to mitigate racially disproportionate practices in…

The challenge for schools and districts across the country has been tackling issues of equity and inclusion that lead to closing opportunity gaps for students. With this in mind, districts have employed schools to find alternative approaches to discipline. One option districts and school sites have is the use of restorative practices as both…

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of a behavioral based intervention program on minority student behavior. The Breakfast Club was an intervention created with the goal of improving the negative behavior of minority adolescent students. The participants in this study were minority, high school students who displayed frequent…

The disciplinary disparity between Black and White students is an issue that continues to span preschool educational settings up to secondary school. This study examined the adverse effects of the disproportional rate that Black boys receive expulsions and suspensions compared to White students. This study also analyzed the role of the campus…

This study reframes the issue of kindergarten office discipline referrals (ODRs) as an opportunity to enhance social-emotional learning (SEL) and create a supportive classroom environment rather than solely focusing on managing disruptive behaviors. Discipline issues significantly impede learning and interventions must be more consistent and…

Students with social, emotional, and behavioral difficulties (SEBD) often struggle in traditional classroom settings. Outdoor adventure education programs have been proposed as an alternative approach to support these students. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of developing and implementing an outdoor adventure education…

Department chairs are tasked with a variety of responsibilities including informing institutional decisions, yet approximately 65% of department chairs have reported receiving no training, and two-thirds of those who received training believed it was not adequate. I conducted an external program evaluation of a department chair institute for…

The problem addressed in this study was the increase in discipline infractions during the 2016-2017, 2017-2018, 2018-2019, and 2019-2020 school years among Black six-grade tween girls in Jefferson County Schools (JCS, a pseudonym). The numbers indicated a 44% increase in discipline infractions over a 4-year period. The purpose of this basic…

Disproportionate rates of behavioral problem reporting and consequences for African American males have occurred for decades. With the consequences surrounding problem behaviors typically removing the student from the classroom, whether to the principal's office or for an in-school or out-of-school suspension, time spent in the classroom for…

The purpose of this study was to examine how Pleasant Academy (a pseudonym), implemented and experienced Restorative Practices. This approach represents an alternative to traditional, punitive disciplinary actions, such as suspension or expulsion. Mansfield et al. (2018) maintained that Restorative Practices did not have a single definition but…