Picture a student who comes to class late, enters the room with as much noise as possible, and then starts a loud conversation in the back row. When you ask him to please join the rest of the class on page 227 of the textbook, he shoves it off his desk and onto the floor. Instead of picking up the book, the student pulls out his cell phone and makes a show of checking his voicemail. You’re not able to teach, the students aren’t able to learn, and you decide to send the kid to the office with a referral.
“No fair!” he shouts as you escort him to the door. “You just don’t like me because I’m not on your track team.”
Author and former superintendent Suzanne Tingley said that the discipline in school process should be consistent, supported, enforceable, progressive and fair. In the above situation, few teachers would question your decision to remove the student from class and no one would think that you showed bias against the kid.
“For the most part, working with kids is a pretty good experience. We’ve chosen [teaching] as our life’s work. Most of the time things go smoothly, but not all of the time. When things don’t go smoothly, we want to make sure we have protocol in place for when they arise,” Tingley said.
Tingley said it is important to have a school behavior discipline manual or policy written down and discussed with everyone involved with discipline: teachers, administrators, students, and parents. Everyone needs to have input on the policy.
“At the secondary level, the principal or vice principal should meet with the students at the beginning of the year to review the discipline policy and a manual should be handed out,” Tingley said. “That way when a student wearing a sexually or racially charged shirt is told to remove it, they can’t say “well nobody told me that.”
Even though you might think that a rule is very clear, you’ll find some students and parents who don’t see it that way, Tingley said.
The discipline policy needs to be presented clearly in a manual and policies need to be set. The work on the discipline plan needs to happen on the front end, before school starts, or the work will certainly happen on the back end, during the school year.
“If you don’t have a plan (school behavior policy) and a philosophy that is shared by everyone, discipline can take up a large part of your day,” Tingley said.
She said the four key players in the “circle of discipline” in school are the student, teacher, principal and parents. People from each one of these groups need to be involved in the school discipline policy.
“The majority of students want to go to a school that is safe, controlled and well run. They don’t like disruptions in their classrooms and confrontation makes them uneasy,” Tingley said.
Tingley said that all students should know what behavior is acceptable and what’s not. The line between the two should be clear and both teachers and administrators should be working on the same side of that line.
“Teachers are the frontline of school-wide discipline. The number one issue teachers have with discipline is consistency in implementation of the program. Teachers would like to see consistency not only from their principal [but also] from their colleagues,” Tingley said.
For a discipline in school plan to work, all teachers must be on board. That means that everyone from the algebra teacher to the agriculture teacher must enforce the rules consistently for every class and every student.
“Often times you have one or two teachers that don’t care. Some who want to be seen as the nice guy or they think the rule is stupid anyway. Teachers do not like to confront their own colleagues, so that falls on the principal,” Tingley said. “Not all teachers agree with all of the rules all of the time. But everyone must work together.”
Tingley said administrators must set a consistent behavior plan for dealing with discipline. The plan should include three things: timely action, consequences, and communication.
“In an ideal scenario the principal’s actions with a student should include allowing students to calm down, speaking courteously to students, take notes, asking the student to wait while he confirms the story with a teacher, returning to talk to the student, calling the parents, deciding on consequences, and informing the students, teacher and parent,” Tingley said.
Parents are a big part of the circle of discipline and should always be included in the discipline process.
“For the great majority of parents, safety is a key issue in school. They expect school personnel will take whatever steps necessary to ensure the safety of their children,” Tingley said.
Administrators should be prepared for parents to get involved with the discipline process.
“After a discipline decision is made, a parent may want to meet with the teacher and it’s a good idea for the principal to be present,” Tingley said.
When closing the discipline process, it’s important that the principal lets all parties know what the punishment is. Principals need to keep teachers in the loop, even if the action wasn’t able to be taken. It shows respect for the teacher, Tingley said.
