Behavior Management and Disciplinary Strategies

This brief profiles strategies that large public school districts utilize to manage student behavior and discipline. The brief includes an overview of practices schools use to keep students in school, particularly in the context of disproportionality, by leveraging programs like Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports and Restorative Justice. The research addresses how teachers and staff are trained and supported in these practices and the ways schools determine whether related programs are effective.

This brief profiles strategies that large public school districts utilize to manage student behavior and discipline. The brief includes an overview of practices schools use to keep students in school, particularly in the context of disproportionality, by leveraging programs like Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports and Restorative Justice. The research addresses how teachers and staff are trained and supported in these practices and the ways schools determine whether related programs are effective. Download the Report Key observations from our research 1. At all profiled school districts, contacts cite disproportionality in disciplinary systems as influential to their current practices. 2. Profiled schools pair positive behavioral teachings and interventions with alternative disciplinary approaches (e.g., restorative justice) to establish both a proactive and reactive behavioral strategy. 3. Administrators often initiate new and alternative behavioral and disciplinary approaches at the district level, but allow individual schools to tailor the programs to align with school culture. 4. Administrators at profiled schools track and communicate discipline-related data to target reoccurring problematic behaviors, and to create specific action plans to improve their existing strategies.