Fix School Discipline Toolkit for Educators | Page 69

HOW TO LEAD YOUR SCHOOL AND SCHOOL
DISTRICT TO REFORM SCHOOL DISCIPLINE
The highlights and tools already provided should give you enough information about how to get started with implementing alternatives to the current out-of-school suspension practices, as well as who you can contact around
the state to get assistance and advice. In the next sections, you will learn a little more about some of the steps to
implementation, including collecting and analyzing school discipline data to focus reform efforts, sharing that
data with the school community to highlight and explain the need for change, reviewing other sample and model
policies to determine how best to implement the alternatives, understanding the various options for funding such
alternatives (including through your existing school budget), and making plans to monitor the reforms and share
your victories.

ASSESSING THE IMPACT OF SCHOOL
DISCIPLINE PRACTICES: UNDERSTANDING
WHERE AND HOW TO FOCUS THE REFORM
EFFORTS

1.

The first step is to collect and analyze the
available data. Every school district and school
is required to collect and report data on student
discipline and outcomes. The system developed
by your own school district should have enough
information to paint a clear picture. If you want to
see how another school district analyzed its data,
read the Highlight on Vallejo City and view the
PowerPoint they put together to explain the need for
reform to School Board Members, teachers, and the
entire school community.
You can also find data about school discipline and
school climate from four key online sources:
California Department of Education (CDE)
Dataquest website, where you can find basic data
related to suspensions, expulsions, and truancy,
disaggregated by race, ethnicity, and gender and
offense for the school and district. http://dq.cde.
ca.gov/dataquest/
Office of Civil Rights Data Collection webpage,
where you can find information about suspensions
and expulsion rates disaggregated by race,
ethnicity, and gender for the 2009-2010 school year.
schooldisciplinedata.org
The Center for Civil Rights Remedies webpage, where
you can find suspension rates in different states and
districts, based on data from the U.S. Department

of Education, Office for Civil Rights Data Collection
(CRDC) www.ocrdata.ed.gov.
California Healthy Kids Survey, where you can find
information about students’ perceptions of safety and
violence in school, as well as information about their
physical health.
California Health Climate Survey, where you can
find specific information pertaining to perceptions of
school climate as reported by teachers, administrators
and other school staff.

While you are collecting, compiling and
looking at the data, ask yourself:
 What kinds of offenses result in the most office
referrals, suspensions and expulsions?
 Are the majority of students at a particular school
suspended or expelled for dangerous offenses?
Or for non-dangerous and/or vague violations,
such as disrupting class or willful defiance?
 Are certain groups of students, such as students
of color or disabled students, suspended more
than other students?
 How many days of school are being lost to
suspension? What does this mean in lost money
to the school district, if each day a student is
suspended the school loses between $30-50 or
more?
 Which schools have the highest number of
suspensions and expulsions? Which students
attend those schools? What are the API and
attendance rates at those schools? Are those
chronically underperforming schools?

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