Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders

 

Document Type

Learning Object

Date of this Version

1-2017

Citation

Strategy brief

Building and Sustaining Student Engagement series (January 2017)

Barkley Center, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, Nebraska, United States

Abstract

Conclusion

Expulsion is a disciplinary consequence that has been around for many years and serves the purpose of removing students who violate the school codes of conduct or pose an immediate threat to the school. While this strategy was created with school safety in mind, it has been found to lead to serious detrimental outcomes for students and has apparently been over used due to zero tolerance policies. Not only do schools use this strategy for behaviors for which it was not intended, it is also applied disproportionally to students based on ethnicity, gender, and disability status. To address these concerns, researchers and educators have developed several alternative preventive strategies and programs to maintain school safety while also teaching students appropriate behavior. These include efforts to implement approaches which prevent behavior problems, and which identify and intervene with problem behavior before problems escalate. These new frameworks for addressing problem behavior are providing promising alternatives to expulsion.

Use with Caution! Negative outcomes for student likely!

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