August 2021

In-class education is the primary job of any school. All of Old Trail's teachers recognize that the conduct of the students in their classrooms affects behavior outside the classroom. With that in mind, all teachers will create, explain and disseminate the rules and accompanying rewards and punishments for those rules that govern all aspects of classroom behavior. The subjects of tardiness, missed homework, behavior, dismissal, acceptable work, preparedness and general citizenship should be addressed, and students and teacher should come to a decision regarding allowable frequency of offenses and any subsequent punishment.

During the 1992-93 school year, the OTS faculty and administration embarked on adopting a system of behavioral expectations and consequences that intended to influence the entire school community. That system, in place for over the past 27 school years, has given students and teachers a concrete mechanism to cite, log, and ultimately involve parents in mediating for less than civilized school behavior. This All School Discipline Plan is delineated in subsequent pages below.

One may wish to note some newer rules about photography and video-taping in school, as it relates to privacy, a further interpretation of cyber-bullying, and it would be good to review our rule around mobile phone use and texting, which was newly adopted for 2018-2019.

What follows in this Handbook is an outline of rules, especially for those times of the day when classroom rules may not apply; before school, during breaks, library rules, passing time, locker maintenance and use, lunchtime and recess behavior, locker room behavior, dismissal time, field trips, home and away athletic contests, riding on contracted or public transportation and the like. Also included are those universal rules that apply to civilized behavior inside and outside the classroom.