Disciplining students, particularly those with chronic or serious behavior problems, is a long-standing challenge for educators. They must balance the needs of the school community and those of the individual student. At the heart of this challenge is the use of punitive versus supportive disciplinary practices.? Though increasingly common in recent years, reliance on punitive approaches to discipline, such as ‘zero tolerance’ policies, has proven largely ineffective, even counterproductive. This holds true both for general education students and those with disabilities. Current research and legislation offer alternative ‘best practice’ strategies that support the safe education of all students. Such effective discipline practices ensure the safety and dignity of students and staff, preserve the integrity of the learning environment, and address the causes of a student’s misbehavior in order to improve positive behavioral skills and long-term outcomes.
In recent years many schools have adopted a zero tolerance approach to school discipline that usually entails the expulsion or suspension of students as an automatic consequence of serious acts of misconduct, particularly the possession of weapons or drugs.? Unfortunately, an increasing number of schools apply a zero tolerance approach to behaviors that do not necessarily threaten the safety or welfare of others.? Furthermore, harsh consequences are invoked automatically, irrespective of the severity of the misbehavior or the circumstance involved, and without consideration of the negative impact of these consequences on the welfare of the offending student or on the overall climate of the school.
Research repeatedly has demonstrated that suspension, expulsion, and other punitive consequences are not the solution to dangerous and disruptive student behaviors. In fact evidence, indicates that dangerous students do not become less dangerous to others when they are excluded from appropriate school settings; quite often they become more so . Youth who are not in school and not in the labor force are at exceedingly high risk of delinquency and crime.? Each year’s class of dropouts drains the nation of more than $200 billion in lost earnings and taxes every year. Billions more are spent on welfare, health care and other social services.
Zero tolerance policies as usually implemented:
Positive discipline strategies are research-based procedures that focus on increasing desirable behaviors instead of simply decreasing undesirable behaviors through punishment.? They emphasize the importance of making positive changes in the child’s environment in order to improve the child’s behavior.? Such changes may entail the use of positive reinforcement, modeling, supportive teacher-student relations, family support and assistance from a variety of educational and mental health specialists.?
Research has proven that positive discipline strategies benefit all students because:
IDEA promotes research-based practice . The importance of evidence-based discipline policies is highlighted in the IDEA Amendments of 1997 that govern services to students with disabilities. To support students with disabilities who exhibit challenging behaviors, IDEA requires the consideration of ‘positive behavior interventions, strategies and supports’ when a student’s behavior ‘impedes his or her own learning or that of others.’ The amendments apply not only to direct implementation of supports for individual students, but also address the broader issues of school safety and climates conducive to learning for all students.? Systemic changes in a school’s or district’s approach to discipline and behavioral intervention, including collaboration with families and community agencies, can significantly impact school climate and student learning.? Schools implementing effective strategies have reported reductions in office discipline referrals by 20-60%; this results in improved academic engaged time and improved academic performance for all students. All students, both with disabilities and without, can benefit from proactive behavioral support systems .
Research indicates that effective implementation of proactive behavioral supports includes:
Examples of effective proactive behavioral strategies. There are a number of research-based approaches to providing proactive systems of behavioral support in schools, including Positive Behavior Support (PBS), violence prevention programs, social skills instruction and school-based mental health services. These strategies include:
Not all significant behavior problems can be adequately addressed through proactive behavioral support strategies, given the range of causal factors and more immediate concerns for student safety. However, removing students from needed educational services through suspension or expulsion is not the answer. Students who need to be removed from the regular education setting for even a short time should have access to appropriate instruction. The IDEA regulations specify an alternative to discontinuing the educational services of students with disabilities through implementation of Interim Alternative Educational Settings (IAES). An IAES is a temporary, short-term setting, and must: (1) enable the student with disabilities to continue to progress in the general curriculum, although in another setting, and to continue to receive those services and modifications that will enable the child to meet the goals set out in the IEP; and (2) include services and modifications to address the behavior (e.g., possession of a weapon or drugs, the threat of injurious behavior) and prevent its recurrence. IAES can only be implemented through the Individualized Education Team process, in certain circumstances, following procedures established by IDEA regulations (Bear, Quinn, & Burkholder, 2001).
Characteristics of effective alternative programs, identified through research , include:
Bear, G., Quinn, M. & Burkholder, S. (2001). Interim alternative educational settings for children with disabilities . Bethesda, MD: National Association of School Psychologists.
National Association of School Psychologists— www.nasponline.org (see fact sheets on Positive Behavior Supports; Zero Tolerance; IDEA and Discipline)
Sugai, G. & Horner, R. (2001, June).? School climate and discipline: Going to scale (The National Summit on the Shared Implementation of IDEA, Washington, D.C., June 2001). Available at: www.ideainfo.org
Technical Assistance Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (University of Oregon) www.pbis.org
NASP recognizes the contributions and suggestions of Russell Skiba, George Bear, Diana Browning Wright, Gordon Wrobel and Andrea Cohn . Some material was also drawn from the OSEP paper by G. Sugai & R. Horner (see Resources).