July Newsflash
Students will be held to stricter discipline standards starting this fall
Part of an overhaul of the policies of the
District’s Office of Transition and Alternative Education,
the changes are expected to affect disciplinary actions and procedures
at all levels.
These changes include:
- Implementing of a new Code of Student Conduct with tougher guidelines for “chronic misbehavior” and tighter standards for attendance, student attire and appropriate behavior.
- Increasing in the number of available slots in alternative disciplinary schools – which are for disruptive and expelled students – from 2,650 to 3,450 in the fall, a 30 percent jump. The number of students in alternative schools has continuously risen from 1700 in the fall of 2002.
- Doubling the number of Saturday Morning Alternative Reach and Teach (SMART) programs from 22 to 44. SMART is a Saturday intervention program for students with demonstrated discipline problems.
- The addition of four new private providers to manage alternative programs for students who are either expelled or classified as “persistently dangerous.” This includes the launching of a program to serve 165 younger, 3rd and 4th grade students with documented behavioral health problems, managed by the Texas-based for-profit provider Cornell Abraxas.
Gwen Morris, Executive Director of the Office of Transition and Alternative Education, commented that “as we explored and looked for best practices… we realized that some younger students were rising to the top [levels of behavioral misconduct].”
Alternative schools currently only serve students in grades 5-12, and “we needed a different kind of environment to deal with these younger students,” she added.
To streamline disciplinary actions, the District, in consultation with the Education Law Center, has developed plans to cut the due process protocol from 17 steps to seven.
Morris has approached several other community organizations to work on student disciplinary issues, including the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers and Philadelphia Citizens for Children and Youth.
“The partnerships we try to establish are really to help us get to the root of it,” she added.
Robert Listenbee – head of the Philadelphia Defender Association’s Juvenile Justice Unit and a member of the District’s new Violence and Disruption Taskforce – said he is cautiously optimistic about the new changes to the District’s discipline policy.
“We have been willing as advocates to cooperate with the School Reform Commission in addressing these problems,” he said. “We want to remain positive and constructive.”
But, Listenbee warned that stiffer punishments alone will not work. “The [District] needs to become more creative [and] positive in its approach to discipline.”