California School Discipline Practices: Research Findings From a Large-Scale Qualitative Comparative Case Study

• In Event: Where Are We Now? School Discipline Policy and Practice in the Nation's Most Populous State

Abstract

Members of three regional research teams will present findings from a state-wide, qualitative comparative case study of 27 schools in 13 school communities. We identify current school discipline policies and practices, alternatives to punishment and exclusion which have taken hold, and significant contextual factors that supported or constrained efforts towards more restorative and/or positive discipline practices. Data analysis consisted of coding detailed field notes of the school day and interview transcriptions of administrators, teachers, counselors, students, parents and members of community-based organizations; writing analytic memos and individual case studies; discussing themes across teams; and returning to the data to confirm and disconfirm emerging findings.

Overall, we found an emergent commitment of school leaders to find alternatives to suspension and expulsion and the adoption of Positive Behavior Intervention and Supports (PBIS) and Restorative Justice (RJ) to reduce suspensions in every school. However, even when fully implemented, we found that PBIS strategies encouraged, or at minimum maintained, control tendencies in schools while RJ strategies had the potential of encouraging more civic, community, or vocational capacities.

We also found that newly adopted positive discipline alternatives co-existed with more traditional punitive discipline practices such as in-house suspension rooms and suspensions. Law enforcement personnel as well as security and surveillance technologies were present in all of the schools we examined. Yet, other than in one school in which a physical altercation with a student occurred, the actual roles of police officers in schools was minimal, often relegated to “the police car parked in front” and shaking hands with students. These findings bolster concerns and emerging research (Jackson, 2002; Na & Gottfredson, 2013; Stern & Petrosino, 2018) that suggests that not only may school police have neutral or negative impact on school climates and cultures, but they may not be cost effective when compared to other adult supports on campus.

School- and community-level factors mattered for the extent to which alternative forms of discipline had taken hold. Schools in which positive school discipline was practiced more fully, the administrators held capacity-oriented perspectives of the adults in their buildings and of the children and families they served. Furthermore, these schools were in relationship with multiple community-based organizations and institutions that avidly championed alternatives to punishment at the school and district level, provided ongoing support at school sites, and acted as watchdogs to ensure schools stayed the course with non-punitive school disciplinary practices. Institutional constraints included implementation with minimal resources, the accountability and academic pressures of “doing school” that necessitated order and control, and the interest convergence and narrowing of the goals of school discipline reform to be about meeting organizational interests in recovering funding associated with Average Daily Attendance (ADA). These constraints were more acutely felt by educators in schools who had minimal exposure to community-based advocacy for restorative justice practices.

This study offers a unique opportunity for educators, policy makers, advocates, and others to take stock of deliberate, well-resourced efforts and to share the successful strategies that have emerged in diverse regions for de-institutionalizing punishment and institutionalizing more restorative alternatives.

Authors

• Bianca N. Haro, Pitzer College

• Jamelia Nicole Harris, University of California - Los Angeles

• Danielle Huddlestun, San Diego State University

• Jeremy Kidd Prim, University of California - Davis

• Seenae Chong, University of San Francisco