"Stuck" Improving: The Human Side of a School Discipline Reform Initiative

• In Event: 14.044 - Roundtable Session 1
  In Roundtable Session: 14.044-6 - Improving Teaching Practice in Complex Reforms

Abstract

Skiba and Losen (2015) noted that if teachers are to successfully replace counterproductive discipline practices with more effective and restorative ones “it is critically important that educators be fully supported with resources and training” (pg. 10, 2015) in the forms of professional development and technical assistance, administrative support, and ongoing collection of and access to disaggregated discipline data. This study examined one school’s attempts to offer these resources to help teachers become more restorative discipline authorities. In my study I sought to answer the following question: What challenges did leaders at a racially diversifying school encounter as they attempted to lead a predominantly white teaching staff in replacing their punitive discipline practices with restorative and supportive ones?

Author

• Decoteau J. Irby, University of Illinois at Chicago