A university academic advising coordinator responds to a study of readmission among academically dismissed students, suggesting that while objective measures of success are important, they should not be the sole basis for readmission. Student attitudes, quality of advisor-student interactions, and individual student circumstances are seen as…

Administrators should regard each student threat as legitimate, but need flexibility in how they respond. Getting the facts and following due process are essential. School policy should require that students be referred to law-enforcement officials and specify communication, crisis-management, identification, and preventive/proactive procedures.…

After four years of implementation, the National Center for Education Statistics found that schools employing zero-tolerance policies are still less safe than those without such policies. Indiscriminate use of force is the hallmark of authoritarianism. Programmatic prevention, screening and early identification, and effective discipline policies…

Zero tolerance policies stem from the culture of fear that pervades many schools today--fear of violence, bullying, and unruly behaviour. The code of conduct is clearly spelled out and if students disobey, the retribution is swift--usually suspension or expulsion. The rules are designed to apply equally to everyone, irrespective of age, gender,…

Current research is establishing the importance of teaching empathy skills to youth in order to prevent aggression and to teach important interpersonal and work skills. The Center for Safe Schools and Communities has developed supplementary Aggression Replacement Training materials (the PEACE Curriculum) that emphasizes empathy training with…

This report provides state summary tables and district reports of graduation rates, dropout rates, and suspension and expulsion rates. The Colorado graduation rate for the class of 1995 was 77.4%, a decrease of 1.4 percentage points from the rate reported for the class of 1994. Computation of this rate included the 53 alternative and second-chance…

This synthesis document provides an understanding of current issues, policies, and practices in the application of school discipline to students with disabilities. The report contains three sections: (1) legal information including the provisions of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of…

Using data from the 1996 National Household Education Survey (NHES:96), this issue brief looks at the involvement of nonresident fathers in terms of how such involvement affects student performance in grades K-12. In the NHES, resident parents reported on whether nonresident parents who had had contact with their children in the past year had…

The rates of exclusion among pupils in the 450 primary, secondary, and special schools in the Birmingham (England) local education agency were studied, and data were analyzed by sex, age, school sector, and ethnic group. The attitudes of teachers and administrators were studied through interviews with up to five school staff members in each of six…

The issue of suspension and expulsion of special education students is examined to assist state- and local-level administrators. Attention is directed to current local policies and practices and conceptual and legal considerations in the suspension and expulsion of handicapped students. Examples of problems and solutions documented by State…

PASS (Positive Alternatives to Student Suspensions) is a Portland Public Schools program which provides a sequence of intervention strategies to improve attendance and progress of "high risk" high school students. The goal of its student, staff, parent, and community components is the reduction in the number of students suspended, or…

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate that the disproportionate number of poor, minority, and working class students represented among the population of "school dropouts" are, objectively, the victims of an institutional syndrome of systematic exclusion referred to as "the student pushout" phenomenon. Cincinnati's junior…

To aid Oregon's school districts in developing policies and procedures for student conduct and discipline, this document suggests guidelines for district preparation and distribution of student conduct codes, including formal and informal student assembly, dress and grooming, use of motor vehicles, search and seizure, attendance, freedom of…

The constitutional basis for laws concerning rights of the handicapped lies in the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection and due process clauses. Recent litigation has been based on Section 504 of the 1973 Rehabilitation Act, P.L. 94-142. Significant court decisions affecting education have been handed down in five areas. Regarding right to free…

In Goss v. Lopez and Wood v. Strickland, the U.S. Supreme Court spelled out what due process means as it applies to suspension and expulsion of public school students. In Goss v. Lopez, the Court decided that a student who is suspended for up to ten days without a hearing is entitled to due process of law: "students . . . must be given some…