Despite our efforts to proactively set students up for behavioral success and to prevent problem behavior, there will still be incidents of problem behavior. When it comes to responding to problem behavior we have three primary goals:
Make sure to keep everyone safe
Minimize the loss of instructional time for all students (including the student who engaged in problem behavior)
To teach the student the appropriate behavior to use instead of the problem behavior
Every occurrence of problem behavior is an important opportunity to teach the appropriate, desired behavior to the student. It is our responsibility to provide fair and consistent consequences for problem behavior that focus first on teaching our students the appropriate behavior and then get them back engaged in academic instruction as quickly as is safely possible.
Level 1:
Staff are encouraged to deal with minor problem behavior in the classroom. The response to many behaviors will be a simple redirection and return to instruction (e.g. reteach expectations, redirect to task, a calm response to engage in the expected behavior, or recognizing a neighboring peer for the expected behavior). Teachers are encouraged to hold at least one parent meeting, implement behavior charts, and other interventions before progressing to level 2.
Level 2:
For student behavior that persists beyond a warning or repeated redirection, disrupts instruction, or recurring student behavior, a teacher redirection may be paired with an office referral. When delivering an office referral, staff members should clearly identify the behavior of concern, link it to violation of a school-wide rule and use the opportunity to have the student practice the appropriate response whenever possible. Staff may pair with a classroom consequence (helping organize books, cleaning desks, whiteboards, etc.), however, the staff member should make sure to try to reduce the loss of instructional time. Sometimes students are referred to the school counselor to discuss better choices and complete a "think sheet" that helps them to make connections to how others may have been affected and how they felt.
Behaviors that indicate an office referral are more serious than a Level 1 offense and may result in disciplinary action. Students may also receive an office referral for repeated redirections for the same behavior.
Level 3:
Serious student offenses for which the school principal may be involved call for an Office Discipline Referral. Such offenses will merit parent communication and will likely result in some disciplinary action. Disciplinary responses for Level 3 offenses will focus on minimizing the loss of instructional time and focus on returning the student to the classroom as quickly as possible when it is safe to do so. Once again instruction of the expected behavior, including student practice, should be a consistent component of all disciplinary responses. When appropriate, students are given the opportunity for alternatives to suspension. Whether or not a student is sent to the office immediately will be based on the severity of the behavior. Additionally, the school counselor will also meet with this student to process the situation.
Level 3 behaviors might be Ed. Code violations; the student will be given an Office Discipline Referral and will be sent to the office to be seen by the Administration (or designee).