Discipline in Louisiana Schools

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Discipline in Louisiana Schools
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Why Focus on Discipline in LA?

• According to the NAEP background survey
  administered in 2003
• 44 of school officials reported that classroom
  misbehavior of 8th graders was a moderate or
  serious problem. (LA Ranked 47 out of 51)
• 19 of school officials reported that physical
  conflicts among 4th graders were a moderate or
  serious problem. (LA Ranked 50 out of 51)
• 26 of school officials reported that physical
  conflicts among 8th graders were a moderate or
  serious problem. (LA Ranked 47 out of 51)

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Why Focus on Discipline in LA?

• SIS data 5 year Trend

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Why Focus on Discipline in LA?

• 2003 Juvenile Justice Reform Act (1225)
• 79 of the 143 legislators co-authored this bill
  that was unanimously passed
• The legislature hereby finds and declares that
• The good behavior and discipline of students are
  essential prerequisites for academic learning,
  the development of student character, and the
  general, as well as educational, socialization of
  children and youth.
• Bad behavior and lack of discipline in many
  schools of the state are impairing the quality of
  teaching, learning, character development, and,
  in some schools, are creating real and potential
  threats to school and public safety.

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Why Focus on Discipline in LA?

• 2003 Juvenile Justice Reform Act (1225)
• Subpart C-1 The Education/Juvenile Justice
  Partnership Act legislated that
• BESE would formulate, develop, and recommend a
  Model Master Plan for improving behavior and
  discipline within schools that includes the
  utilization of positive behavioral supports and
  other effective disciplinary tools
• Each city, parish, and other local public school
  board should be responsible for the development
  of school master plans for supporting student
  behavior and discipline based upon the model
  master plan developed and approved by BESE

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Why SWPBS in LA?
Positive Behavior Support
Supporting Staff Behavior
Supporting Decision Making
Supporting Student Behavior
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1. SWPBS is based on Coordinated Teamwork

• Look at old issues from a NEW perspective
• Explore the validity of first impressions
• Stimulate creativity
• Think outside-the-box
• (Florida Positive Behavior Support Project at
  USF, 2004)

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Have you ever been part of this team?

• No agenda is prepared
• Meeting starts late
• No time schedule has been set for the meeting
• No one is prepared
• No facilitator is identified
• No one agrees on anything
• No action plan is developed
• Everyone is off task
• Negative tone throughout the meeting

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Establishing a Foundation for Collaboration and
Operation

• Necessary first step
• Without this many schools cannot sustain
  long-term change

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A School-based PBS Team

• School Advisory Councils must be committed to
  school-wide PBS and actively participate on the
  team
• PBS team should remain small (3-7 participants)
• Consider representatives that include
  administration, general education teachers,
  special education teachers, guidance, specials
  teachers, parents
• Consider Core Team versus Peripheral Team

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School-based PBS TeamMeets Frequently

• During initial planning, teams may need to meet
  more often
• Team should meet at least once a month to
• Analyze existing data
• Make changes to the existing database
• Problem-solve solutions to critical issues
• Begin to outline actions for the development
• of a plan

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Enhancing Meeting Success

• Administrator identifies how to free staff time
  for participation on the PBS Team
• Clearly schedule meeting dates and times
• Administrators remind staff of the significant
  impact and ultimate success

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2. SWPBS is Data Driven

• Who are the students with multiple referrals?
• What are the most common referral categories?
• When are the referrals occurring?
• Where are the referrals originating?
• Why? Is there a system for follow-up to the
  multiple referrals?

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Who?
Students per Number of Referrals
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What?
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When?
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Where?
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3. SWPBS Emphasizes Prevention

• Prevention
• Decrease development of new problem behaviors
• Prevent worsening of existing problem behaviors
• Eliminate triggers maintainers of problem
  behaviors
• Teach, monitor, acknowledge prosocial behavior
• 3-tiered prevention logic that defines continuum
  of behavior support.

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4. SWPBS is based on co-constructing
expectations and teaches them to students and
staff.

• If a child doesnt know how to read, we teach.
• If a child doesnt know how to swim, we teach.
• If a child doesnt know how to multiply, we
  teach.
• If a child doesnt know how to drive, we teach.
• If a child doesnt know how to behave,
  we..... .teach? punish?
• Why cant we finish the last sentence as
  automatically as we do the others?
• John Herner (NASDE President) Counterpoint 1998,
  p.2

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5. SWPBS requires systems to monitor and
acknowledge pro-social behaviorsof staff and
students
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Levels of PBSAdapted from Levels and
Descriptions of Behavior Support(George,
Harrower, Knoster, 2003)

• School-wide intended for all students, staff, in
  specific settings and across campus
• Classroom reflect school-wide expectations for
  student behavior coupled with pre-planned
  strategies applied within classrooms
• Targeted Group addresses students who are
  at-risk for school failure, or display a chronic
  pattern of inappropriate behavior that does not
  respond to school-wide interventions
• Individual Student reflect school-wide
  expectations for student behavior coupled with
  team-based strategies applied with individual
  students based upon child-centered behavior

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Why SWPBS in LA?
Center for Positive Behavior Interventions and
Supports (2001)
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Traditional Discipline versus PBS

• Traditional Discipline
• - Focused on the students problem behavior
• - Goal was to stop undesirable behavior, through
  the use of punishment.

• Positive Behavior Support
• - Replaces undesired behavior with a new
  behavior or skill.
• - PBS alters environments,
• teaches appropriate skills, and rewards
  appropriate behavior.

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Elements of School-wide PBS

• Establish a team/faculty buy-in
• Establish a data-based decision-making system
• Modify discipline referral process/forms
• Establish expectations rules
• Develop lesson plans teach
• Create a reward/incentives program
• Refine consequences
• Monitor, evaluate, and modify

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Responsibilities of the School-wide PBS Team

• Assess the current behavior management practices
• Examine patterns of behavior
• Obtain staff commitment
• Develop a school-wide plan
• Obtain parental participation and input
• Oversee, monitor, and evaluate all planned
  objectives and activities developed by team

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Features of a Comprehensive System of PBS

• Total staff commitment to managing behavior
• Clearly defined and communicated expectations and
  rules
• Consequences and clearly stated procedures for
  rewarding appropriate behavior and for correcting
  rule-breaking behaviors
• An instructional component for teaching students
  self-control, expected behaviors, and social
  skills strategies
• A support plan to address the needs of students
  with chronic, challenging behaviors

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Overall Features ofSchool-wide PBS (Sugai, 2001)

• Create a continuum of behavior supports from a
  systems perspective
• Focus on behavior of adults in school as unit
• Establish behavioral competence
• Utilize effective, efficient relevant
  data-based decision-making systems
• Give priority to academic success
• Invest in research-validated practices
• Arrange environment for working smarter

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Results of School-wide PBS

• When PBS strategies are implemented school-wide,
  students with and without disabilities benefit by
  having an environment that is conducive to
  learning
• All individuals (students, staff, teachers,
  parents) learn more about their own behavior,
  learn to work together, and support each other as
  a community of learners

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In SummaryThe Process for School-wide PBS
Includes

• A committed team leading all PBS efforts
• Positively stated behavior expectations/rules
• A method for identifying current problems (data)
• Lesson plans to teach expectations/rules
• Procedures for encouraging expected behaviors
• Procedures for discouraging violations of
  school-wide expectations/rules
• A plan for monitoring implementation and
  effectiveness

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Utilizing Discipline Plans to Change School
Environments and Improve Academic Achievement
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BESEs Model Master Plan

• Definition of Discipline
• The steps or actions which teachers,
  administrators, support staff, parents, and
  students follow to enhance student academic and
  social success
• Goal of Plan
• To educate all students by establishing
  efficient and effective systems and practices
  that support staff efforts and positive student
  behavior through the utilization of existing data
  to guide decision-making

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BESEs Model Master Plan

• State-Level Activities
• Improving communication, coordination, and
  collaboration between schools and agencies
  serving children
• Improving Safe School Planning
• Revising school zero tolerance policies to
  guarantee compliance with all applicable
  provisions of law to ensure that schools do not
  make inappropriate referrals to agencies serving
  children
• Providing improved mental health services in or
  through schools

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BESEs Model Master Plan

• State-Level Activities (cont.)
• Providing better assistance to parents in knowing
  about and accessing family strengthening programs
• Improving the coordination of special education
  and agencies serving children
• Improving classroom management using positive
  behavioral supports and other effective
  disciplinary tools
• Improving methods and procedures for the handling
  of school suspensions and the referral of
  students to alternative schools

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BESEs Model Master Plan

• State-Level Activities (cont.)
• Providing better assistance to parents by
  providing knowledge about and access to family
  strengthening programs
• Providing better and more useful reporting on an
  annual basis of school behavioral and
  disciplinary problems
• Assisting each city, parish, and other local
  public school board with the development of a
  master plan for each school

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School-Level Planning Goal

• Assure classroom management using positive
  behavioral supports and effective disciplinary
  tools through the
• Establishment and utilization of a school-based
  leadership team to meet on a regularly scheduled
  basis to review data and guide process
• Establishment of a data-based decision making
  process
• Identification of data-driven academic, career
  and technical, discipline/behavioral performance
  results in the School Improvement Plan
• Development of school plan through step-wise
  process

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School-Level Leadership Team

• Each leadership team shall, to the extent
  possible
• Include school administrators, teachers, parents,
  guidance counselors, and school bus operators
• Establish clearly defined behavioral expectations
• Use data to make environmental changes, monitor,
  evaluate, and modify the model plan
• Review/revise plans that align with Master Plan
  for Discipline to ensure that all plans meet
  statutory requirements

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School-Level Data Based Decisions

• Current data systems are set up to meet state
  district needs
• In this day of accountability, schools need
  access to meaningful information - School
  Improvement
• Graphical displays
• Timely
• User friendly

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Critical Questions

• How many office discipline referrals are there
• per day each month?
• Need the number of days a month
• based on location?
• based on the type of behavior?
• by student?
• by time of day?
• by which staff?
• originating from special education and general
  education?
• What is the range of consequences provided
• based on the type of behavior exhibited?

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Average Referrals Per Day Per Month
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Referrals By Problem Behavior
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Referrals By Location
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Referrals By Time Of Day
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Referrals By Student
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Referrals By Staff
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Data Systems

• The Department will require that schools make
  data-based decisions - provide schools with
  necessary information to make decisions.
• These features and/or elements are anticipated
  for the school level, not to report to the
  Department.

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Purpose of Data

• With a school-wide data collection system,
  schools are better prepared to respond
  proactively to situations
• Schools can begin to identify problems and
  generate solutions
• Monitor and evaluate success of interventions
• Recommended that data are entered daily, but at
  least weekly (at a minimum)

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Data-based (Guided) Decision-making

• Provides teams with access to comprehensive,
  accurate, and timely data
• Impacts behavior for the entire school, classroom
  settings, targeted groups, and individual
  students
• Increases the probability that systems changes
  and interventions will be more successful
• Provides a resource for evaluating effectiveness

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Creating a School Level Discipline Plan

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School-Level Step-Wise Planning

• Required School consistently and uniformly
  utilizes two BESE-approved Discipline Referral
  forms (or forms that contain all necessary
  components)
• Optional School has created an addendum to
  BESE-approved forms to assist with data
  collection
• Optional School has a Zero-Tolerance Policy
• Required Team has reviewed Zero-Tolerance
  Policy to ensure compliance
• If needed Team has revised Zero-Tolerance Policy
• Required Team has reviewed procedures for
  handling suspensions and expulsions

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School-Level, Step-Wise Planning

• Required Team has reviewed procedures for
  referrals to Alternative Education Programs.
• Required Team has reviewed Code of Student
  Conduct for Compliance.
• Required Team has refined consequences to
  create a reward/incentives program for positive
  behavior.
• Required Team has created a procedure to ensure
  consistent delivery of the rewards/incentives
  program.
• Required Team has identified the clearly
  defined behavioral expectations in a small set of
  school rules.

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School-Level, Step-Wise Planning

• Required Team has worked with teachers to
  develop lesson plans to teach expectations.
• Required Team has worked with teachers to
  establish a schedule for direct instruction at
  the beginning and throughout school year.
• Required Team works and will continue to work
  with the principal to develop and submit annual
  report.
• Required Team has reviewed programs for
  Substance Abuse prevention (R.S. 17404).

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School-Level, Step-Wise Planning

• Required Team has reviewed the SDFSC plan and
  the Crisis Management Plan.
• If needed Plans have been updated/revised.
• Required Team has a plan and continues to
  develop a plan to improve and strengthen parental
  and community involvement and partnerships.
• Required Team works and continues to work with
  counselors to develop a plan to identify the
  mental health needs of students and match needs
  with available resources.

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School-Level, Step-Wise Planning

• Required Team is working to help improve
  communication, coordination, and collaboration
  between the school and agencies that serve
  children.
• Required Team is working with the local youth
  planning boards.
• Required Team has reviewed/established
  procedures to ensure that record transfers occur
  no later than 10 days from receipt of written
  request.
• Required Team has reviewed/established
  procedures to ensure that information pertaining
  to suspensions and/or expulsions is included on
  student transfer records.

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School-Level, Step-Wise Planning

• Required Team has reviewed established
  procedures/trainings to ensure that all staff
  cooperates fully with CWA.
• Required Team has reviewed and is working to
  ensure that student and parent/guardian
  statements of compliance, with all necessary
  components, are disseminated and collected at the
  beginning of each school year.

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