Despite decades of research and reform, exclusionary discipline remains disproportionately used with minoritized students and students with disabilities (SWD). The present study investigates how functional behavior assessment (FBA) and Positive Behavior Support Plan (PBSP) procedures can be taught in conjunction with an explicit focus on achieving…

In contrast with professional norms and best practices, the legal requirements for functional behavioral assessments (FBAs) and behavior intervention plans (BIP) are meager in scope and specificity (Collins & Zirkel, 2017). Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act (2017) makes no mention of FBAs or BIPs, and the Individuals with Disabilities…

Over the past several decades, public schools across the United States have experienced an increasingly visible diversity rift between student enrollment and teaching faculty. The number of students from diverse backgrounds continues to grow while educator ranks continue to become more homogeneous. This diversity rift presents several challenges…

The only consistency with children, with and without disabilities, is that they are inconsistent. Much of a child's behavior is adult controlled by their reaction, methods used, and consistency in support and discipline. When adults change the way they respond to the child's behaviors, the child gradually will learn to modify their behavior.…

Increasing efforts have been made in the field of special education to identify positive, evidence-based practices (EBPs) to meet the needs of students who engage in problem behavior, with a major goal being to eliminate or limit the use of reactive measures such as restraint and seclusion (Snell & Walker, 2014). Various stakeholders,…

In the past several years, there has been an important movement to reduce the utilization of restraint for individuals with developmental disabilities. Legislatures, local and national, are taking on the task of shaping the way that our culture supports people who, up until now, have been often treated in a punitive manner rather than truly…

Court-involved, female students often experience trauma and disproportionate school discipline, complicating their academic success. This mixed-method study examines students' use of and experiences with the Monarch Room (MR), a trauma-informed disciplinary alternative. The study examines service utilization, using a repeated measures analysis of…

The purpose of this "From the Field" article is to share the tentative results of community-engaged research investigating the impact of Restorative Justice Discipline Practices on persistent discipline gaps in terms of race, gender, and special education identification.

Disproportionality in discipline has been well-documented in the research literature (Achilles, McLaughlin, & Croninger, 2007; Losen & Gillespie, 2012; Gregory, Skiba, & Mediratta, 2017; Skiba, Peterson, & Williams, 1997). Students from diverse ethnic backgrounds and students with disabilities are removed from their classrooms more…

Social scientists are generally in agreement that spanking is not an especially effective method of discipline and is associated with a variety of behavioral and mental health problems in children. Interventions that have focused on disseminating this empirical research have met with some success in changing pro-spanking attitudes. However, given…

Positive or negative behaviors a child displays while exploring, learning, and communicating express how they are adapting to their environment. There are as many reasons for a behavior as there are children. Some children react inappropriately because they have never been given direction or taught how to handle various situations. It is important…

The South African Schools Act of 1996 provides that school governing bodies (SGBs) should adopt and assist in the enforcement of a learner code of conduct to maintain discipline effectively. This study focuses on the perceptions and experiences of SGBs in managing discipline in rural secondary schools through the design and enforcement of learner…