Dramatic Reductions in School Disciplinary Actions Reported

Todays release of the ninth annual report produced by the Kentucky Center for School Safety and is cause for celebration.

Most importantly, these data show a dramatic reduction over the five-year period under study here in:

• Total disciplinary actions for Part I offenses,
• Total disciplinary actions for Part II offenses, and
• Disciplinary actions for the most serious offenses of aggravated assault, arson, larceny/theft and burglary.

Furthermore, encouraging developments can be seen in:

• The steady decline in disciplinary actions for Board Violations that has occurred over the past five years
• A 34.3% decrease in drug abuse incidents from the 2003-2004 peak in these incidents,
• A 10.0% decrease in suspensions for board policy violations from last year's total, and an 17.4% decrease from the 2003-2004 peak in these incidents; and
• An 11.8% decrease in corporal punishments from last year’s total and a 36.4% decrease over the five-year period. In 2007-2008, 52 districts throughout the state used corporal punishment at least once during the school year.

KCSS Executive Director Jon Akers told KSN&C he is pleased by the trend and believes that, while no place is perfectly safe all the time, he believes that Kentucky schools are safer today than they were ten years ago. Akers cited several factors that may account for the trend.

• General public and professional awareness over the past decade
• Better intelligence, where law enforcement and schools officials more readily share information about possible problems
• students let teachers know when another student displays a troubling change in behavior
• Educators are much more proactive and oriented toward prevention
• Educators monitor better; more actively monitoring students, not just passively being present
• Fewer drugs in school
• It's much more common to see the whole school staff pulling together

And Akers is in a good position to hear the anecdotal data about school safety that is not readily apparent from the report. Not only is he the former principal at Bryan Station and Dunbar high schools in Fayette County, but his organization has conducted over 4,000 training sessions involving more than 230,000 school and law enforcement personnel over the past ten years. "They're hungry for it," he says of school safety protocols and data.

But trends in school disciplinary data are not easily tracked. And it's not always possible to know, for example if a decrease in suspensions means lax enforcement or improved student behavior; does it mean a retreat from a no-tolerance policy or an increase is supervisory personnel?

Nevertheless, not all the news from this report is good news. The number of disciplinary actions for terroristic threatening increased 74.2% over the five-year period and 11.9% between 2006-2007 and 2007-2008.

But is this really bad news? This is roughly the same time frame that bullying has come into the spotlight. I asked Akers about this and he agreed. The increased attention paid to student threats ultimately led to House Bill 91 - the anti-bully bill. "There's been a crack down on bullying," Akers said. A decade ago, school officials might not have considered a "hit list" to be a serious threat. "Today they treat it very differently," Aker said. And the same goes for some kid who writes a note saying "I'm going to get you."

Akers also said he believes high school principals are doing a better job of correctly identifying the elements of Kentucky law that distinguish the various levels of assault. "They're not just calling a fight aggravated assault if it doesn't meet the requirements of the law," he said. For example, a determination of first degree assault requires that a deadly weapon was used or that the perpetrator displayed extreme indifference to human life. The degree of injury matters. Whether the victim is a protected individual, like a teacher, matters.

Furthermore, disciplinary actions for alcohol violations increased 27.1% between 2006-2007 and 2007-2008. Additionally, Expulsions without Services for Law violations increased 20.5% over the five-year period and 56.7% from 2006-2007 to 2007-2008. These findings suggest that, despite the general good news regarding school safety in Kentucky, there are still areas where further study and efforts are needed.

Due to enhanced data collection procedures, this year’s report again provides information on board and Law Violations with regard to grade level, school type, socio-economic indicators, and drug use and distribution. This additional information offers a richer database and affords advanced exploration of the complexities of student behavior. Additionally, for the first time, this report includes a comparison of disciplinary actions between those students who have an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) and those who do not.

These enhanced data collection procedures allowed us to identify distinct disciplinary action patterns by grade level, Board, and Law Violations. These data reveal that disciplinary actions for both Law and Board Violations increase dramatically between 5th and 6th grades and 8th and 9th grades. This pattern has held true for four years and supports a variety of anecdotal evidence that suggests these transition years are particularly difficult and that transition may lead to these increases in disciplinary actions.

Despite these enhancements, there are still shortcomings in the data collection process that, when addressed, will allow for much richer data analysis than is currently possible. The most important of these shortcomings involves the current inability to connect each disciplinary action to a particular student through a unique identifier. Currently, the discipline data are reported by infraction and disciplinary action. Although individual-level data (gender, ethnicity, grade, lunch type, special education classification, limited English proficiency, mobility, etc.) are available at the school level, we currently do not have access to that information. This makes it impossible for us to match disciplinary actions with individuals. If we had that capability, data analysis could be more thorough and detailed. For example, examination of offender recidivism is currently not possible...

SOURE: Kentucky Center for School Safety