| Description |
School safety has long been a concern for students, parents, educators, and policymakers. Student discipline policies are often used to promote school safety. Exclusionary discipline policies are one category of student discipline. These discipline policies remove students from educational environments either temporarily or permanently, and include suspension, expulsion, and transfer to other schools. The aim of this study was to explore for relationships between the use of exclusionary student discipline in relation to school characteristics and administrator perceptions of policy limits on student discipline and school safety at the federal, state, and district levels. This study uses data from the School Survey of Crime and Safety (SSOCS). The SSOCS is the only nationally representative survey that collects information from school administrators on specific student discipline policies, school characteristics, and perceived limitations of policy on student discipline at various levels (federal, state, and district). The SSOCS includes 17 student discipline policies schools might use to address student infractions. Seven were identified as exclusionary. The SSOCS includes three questions asking administrators to indicate whether they perceive limits from federal, state, or district policies on discipline for special education students, or federal or state and district policies on discipline and safety other than for special education students. Multiple statistical methods including Chi-Square analyses and regression models were used to identify relationships between the use of exclusionary discipline in schools, iv school characteristics, and policy levels. The most significant findings were related to special education (SPED). Schools with higher than average (greater than 12%) rates of SPED students were more likely to use exclusionary discipline than schools with lower than average rates. Schools reporting perceived policy limits by federal, state, or district policies related to disciplining special education students were twice as likely to use exclusionary discipline as schools that did not. Conversely, schools that indicated other non-SPED related federal, state, and district policies limited student discipline were less likely to use exclusionary discipline than schools that did not cite these limits. These findings indicate relationships between school factors, policy factors, and the use of exclusionary discipline in schools. |
