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Alternatives to suspension keep kids in schoolby Sandra Clark |
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SUSPENSIONS
Are schools calmer? Results of a 1998 revision of the discipline code. Alternatives
to suspension keep kids in school Three
masters of management share their tips Breaking
the suspension habit: John Hay emphasizes classroom management
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My name is Fred, and I cursed in class.” With that admission, a freshman at James Ford Rhodes High School began a recent stint in the school’s intervention room, a no-talking quarters where students who misbehave are required to examine their behavior. Intervention rooms are among a number of alternatives to suspension that the schools in the Cleveland Municipal School District are using to improve the learning climate without putting kids on the street. Some researchers who study student discipline say that suspension often is ineffective in changing student behavior and sometimes makes it worse. John Covaleskie, assistant education professor at Northern Michigan University in Marquette, says that suspension works only with students who want to be in school. “The kid that’s going to take a licking and keep on ticking might say ‘Thank you. I didn’t want to be here anyway,’ ” agrees Jeff R. Sprague, associate professor of special education and co-director of the Institute on Violence and Destructive Behavior at the University of Oregon in Eugene. “In our view, you have to keep kids engaged in some manner with adults, or it just sets up a bad situation.” “If you rely heavily on suspensions and expulsions, you’re putting [students] further behind, alienating them from other students and increasing the likelihood that they’ll drop out,” says Paul Kingery, director of the Hamilton Fish Institute at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. The Institute was founded in 1997 to test the effectiveness of school violence prevention methods and identify those that can be replicated. “In the period of time we examined, expulsions increased in several states, contrary to the prevailing belief that zero tolerance has a positive affect,” Kingery says. Rather than act as a deterrent to misbehavior, zero-tolerance policies increase expulsions and time out of school, Kingery contends. The Intervention Room Students typically stay in the intervention room for one period at a time. Thomas requires that they enter calmly—“not huffy and puffy”—so they won’t dig themselves in deeper or repeat the same offense. They must present a teacher’s referral slip, which explains the offense, prescribes a consequence, and lists the classroom assignment the student must complete during his or her stay in the intervention room. Students also must give Thomas a parent’s work or home
telephone number—she often calls parents while their children are in the
room. Students also must write a behavior “contract,” essentially an essay on what they would do to change their behavior. A recent submission by Brandy shows some defiance, too. She wrote: “I used profanity because the teacher made me angry because I just walked into the classroom and she started to yell at me.” “A lot of people should have been in trouble, too,” she continued. “… But I’m not a hater so I won’t say who. Instead of cussing I should have sat down even if a dirty look was exchanged. Actually, I wish that was what I did.” Thomas says that students who are referred repeatedly over a short period of time could face suspension. Before the room opened, she says, troublesome kids went straight to the principal with a referral for suspension.
She says that while the room consistently averages about 10 students, there are few repeaters. When students do return, Ray convenes the school’s Intervention-Based Assistance Team to identify the problem; the team includes the student, a parent, teachers, a guidance counselor and an administrator. Both sleeping and talking should be prohibited in in-school suspension rooms, says Covaleski at Northern Michigan. Otherwise, he says, some kids might commit infractions just to get out of class. He adds that he knows of one teacher who, upon learning that his students couldn’t stand Frank Sinatra’s singing, played a Sinatra album non-stop so that the kids would avoid committing offenses that would bring them back. Community Service The 17-year-old was the central figure in a near-riotous food fight last April. Brown says someone hit him with food and he returned the fire. The next thing he knew, 7th-period lunch had become a battle ground, with 65 kids throwing food. In the end, food covered the walls and windows, tables were broken, and girls were crying over ruined hairdos. Security was called in. “It got wild,” Brown recalls. He was charged with starting the battle. His punishment: three days of community service. He had to help staff clean up the mess made that day as well as sweep floors, clear trash from tables and wipe them off every lunch period for three days. “Kids knew I had to clean up so they said ‘Let me make
a bigger mess,’ ” Brown says. “I learned [my lesson] right there.
You won’t catch me throwing no more food. That straightened me out
because it wasn’t no telling what they were going to make me do next.” |
Harry E. Davis Middle School, near E. 105th and Superior Avenue in the
Glenville neighborhood, has taken a similar approach, by opening an
in-house suspension room. Located in the school’s basement, the long,
narrow room is so quiet that the only sound to be heard is the dull hum of
the heating system. The atmosphere, or lack of it, is designed to make
students never want to return, says Principal Sherree M. Ray.
East
Technical High School at E. 55th near Qunicy Avenue sometimes uses
community service in lieu of suspension. Senior Kenneth A. Brown is one
student cured by the practice. 