School Board endorses new student discipline procedures

The Madison School Board approved at its March 31 meeting a Behavior Education Plan that will overhaul the district’s discipline procedures. The changes, which passed 6-0 with one abstention, will be implemented district-wide for the 2014-15 school year. 

The Behavior Education Plan aims to reduce “exclusionary practices” that take students out of school, away from learning and instead supports discipline that will help students correct their behavior.

The new protocol will replace the Student Code of Conduct, “zero-tolerance”-based policy that refers students for suspension and expulsion at higher rates than Behavior Education Plan 

Voicing her support for the plan, Superintendent Jen Cheatham cited research presented at the meeting that showed exclusionary practices like suspensions and expulsions do not help to address students’ misbehavior. She added exclusionary practices, “do more harm than good” and contribute to secondary problems, such as dropout rates and criminal-justice issues.

“We need to do everything in our power to keep students in school, in a positive and engaging learning environment where they belong,” Cheatham said.

Under the Student Code of Conduct plan, punishment such as suspensions and expulsions results in 6,211 lost instruction days in the 2012-13 school year, according to MMSD research. Had the Behavior Education Plan been in place in 2012-13, about 1,200 fewer instructional days would have been lost.

Ten elementary-school violations and twenty secondary-school offenses that resulted in student suspension were eliminated for the new plan.

At the meeting Cheatham, said these changes were made with safety in mind.

MMSD research shows the new protocol will also reduce the racial disparities in suspension rates in the district. In MMSD, 19 percent of the student body is black yet black students receive 60 percent of suspensions.

 “Too many kids over the years have experienced … a zero-tolerance policy,” Isadore Knox, a Madison parent, said. “And that clearly, disproportionately impacts our African American kids.”

He shared how his son, who is black, was suspended and received a weapons charge for playing with a toy gun with friends on the bus. Knox said the event caused his son anxiety and hurt his academic performance.

JoAnn Jensen, a health teacher at Cherokee Middle School said she does not believe most of the students who are sent out of classrooms are targets of culturally insensitive educators. 

“The notion of targeting is just more teacher-hater language in this regard,” Jensen said.

Erin Proctor, a special education assistant at Cherokee, spoke in favor of the plan but said it would only be successful if it will be properly funded.

“We have to have the allocations; we have to have the in-service; we have to have the funding,” said board member Marj Passman, a former teacher. “This to me is one of the biggest changes I’ve seen ever since I entered into education. It has to be done right from the start or the students won’t respect it and the staff won’t respect it.”

As proposed, the plan’s adoption will cost $1.6 million. The board will discuss how the plan will be funded more in depth at its April meeting.

Board member Mary Burke, who has donated money to Madison Commons for education coverage, abstained, saying that while she is fully in support of adopting the behavior plan at this point in time, she felt the specific resource plan had not been fully vetted and should be part of overall budget discussion for the 2014-15 school year.

“The only way [for] us to make sure this plan actually works is for you all to make sure that we implement it well,” student board member Luke Gangler told the audience at the meeting. “So in a month when the budget proposal comes out, make sure that you have the resources, that we have the resources that we’ll need in our schools.”