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The Toolbox contains a collection of articles with practical advice for school and classroom management.
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Developing an Off-Campus Suspension Program
by Larry Black, Principal, Bowsher High School, Toledo, Ohio
The research of Ruby Payne and Jawanza Kungufu identifies several reasons why students may not behave appropriately in school. Socioeconomic status, race, gender and other cultural conditions all have an impact on how an individual acts. Research reveals that students having different backgrounds than their teachers (e.g., working class vs. middle class) risk not understanding the rules used by the teachers in their classrooms. Thus, it has become the responsibility of the school to help the students learn how to behave in school.
It is important to remember that discipline is a part of the educational process and as such we need to take the opportunity to provide offenders with knowledge and skills so they may act differently if placed in a similar situation in the future. The majority of the students involved in the discipline system will have the knowledge and skills needed to adjust their behavior to allow them to stay in school. However, some members of the school population may not have this knowledge or skills.
The use of suspension as a form of discipline is common in public schools. It is relatively straightforward and easy for all parties to understand. Unfortunately, in my opinion its use is analogous to giving a student a test and not helping him/her understand the questions they answered incorrectly. Although we offer classes for skill improvement in math, language arts, science, and social studies, we need to help students develop proper behaviors. Although detentions, Saturday school, and in-school suspension are used as alternatives to sending students home on suspension, I propose using an off-campus alternative to a suspension program.
Moving a suspension alternative program away from school provides many advantages:
- Community locations may be less threatening to the students.
- It separates students from negative peer influences.
- Access to outside community services can be provided as part of the program.
- Development of relationships between students and community agencies can be fostered.
- Students are recorded as being present in school, helping to improve attendance percentages.
- Two or more schools could combine efforts or share facilities.
- It becomes apparent to all involved that the school is trying to help students as opposed to simply “getting rid of them.”
Students should be assigned to the program for the duration of time they would normally be removed from school per the suspension. An academic advantage would be permitting students to make up school work that is missed while in the program. Lessons that are constructed around state standards could be developed helping students analyze their behavior and how to improved or change it in the future. There are several commercially available programs that may be purchased to help in this process.
When developing a program such as this, be prepared to be met with skepticism from both teachers and parents. Members of both groups will want to visit the program. Teachers want to be certain students are actually working and parents expect to see that the program is truly educational. The development of relationships with key teachers and parents will go a long way toward determining the success of the program. If teachers and parents are supportive and view the program as worthwhile they will encourage the student participation in it.
As with any new program, many questions will be asked during the design phase. A few of them are: What grade levels will be included? How many students will the program accommodate? How will the program be evaluated? Will special education students be included? How will students be transported? What constitutes success? Parent and teacher input should be garnered to help determine appropriate answers. These and many other questions should be addressed before the first student is assigned.
A typical daily schedule may look like this:
- 8:30: Students report
- Attendance is taken and calls are made to absent students’ homes.
- Students are given assignments provided by the regular teachers.
- 9:30: Students are placed in groups
- Students with similar violations are grouped together
- Each group uses question sheets to analyze how behavior could have been different. (Develop alternative strategies as a group.)
- 10:00: Open discussion based on group work
- 11:00: School work
- 11:30: Lunch (Brown Bag)
- 12:00: Open discussion or Guest Speaker
- 1:00: Focused exercises based on rules violation and discipline history
- 2:00: School Work
- 3:00: Dismissal
