How Daily Check-ins Can Prevent Excessive Disciplinary Action
Making a shift from punishment to support
When we send our kids off to public school every morning, we hope that they’re being equipped with the tools they need to thrive in the modern world; a formal academic education, socialization with peers and trusted adults, access to experiences and extracurricular activities and the development of a sense of community, and so much more. We hope that equity and meritocracy will be woven into the very fabric of the K-12 public school system. In many districts and schools, this simply isn’t the case, as systemic issues place undue pressure and burden on students, especially minorities. Excessive disciplinary action in K-12 schools often acts as a microcosm of the systemic racism and oppression of Black, Indigenous, and other non-Black students of color and other minority groups in the United States. While these issues have improved in the last decade, we still have a long way to go. Luckily, policy updates and the adoption of new technologies can help guide schools toward better, more empathetic disciplinary options that meet the needs of our students, rather than simply punishing them.
Excessive Disciplinary Action is Damaging
As Professor Nora Gordon noted in a 2013 article, “the 2013–14 Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) documented that black students, who make up 16 percent of enrollment, accounted for 40 percent of suspensions nationally.” Psychologist Anne Gregory has been discussing disproportionate disciplinary issues throughout her career. In a 2010 paper, she and colleagues coined the term “discipline gap” to describe their findings: Black students are punished more frequently and severely than their white counterparts, with punishments ranging from sending students to the principal’s office to expulsion. Social sciences writer Sujata Gupta recently noted, “Black students in middle and high school were four times as likely to be suspended as white students, based on federal data from the 2015–16 academic year.”
If that isn’t cause for alarm, I don’t know what would be. Black students receive harsher — crueler — discipline for the same behavioral issues that white students exhibit. From the zero-tolerance policies of the 1990s to heightened suspensions for infractions today, research and anecdotal evidence show that disciplinary policies show a correlation between school discipline and an increased likelihood of difficulty outside of school; higher dropout rates, arrests, and incarceration. The School-to-Prison Pipeline, the collective policies, and practices that push students out of school and into the juvenile justice system (often for nonviolent behavior and minor offenses), is excessive disciplinary action at its worst; it robs some of our most creative, resilient, and intelligent students of their futures. Even suspension comes at a steep cost: “Students who are suspended or expelled are nearly three times more likely to come into contact with the justice system the next year,” notes reporter Sara Kuta.
While excessive disciplinary action in schools has improved over the past 10 years — with schools ending suspensions for children younger than second grade, 2014’s Dear Colleague Letter on the Nondiscriminatory Administration of School Discipline, advocacy for public school funding equity, anti-surveillance measures, and implementing practices like restorative justice — we still have work to do. Ensuring students aren’t disciplined without just cause starts with adults in their school districts questioning their existing underlying assumptions, beliefs, and biases, as well as aiming to understand the students’ worlds. One option for making that possible is performing daily check-ins.
Check-ins not only provide students with an easy and comfortable way to share, but they also allow educators the opportunity to listen.
Bringing Empathy into Discipline with Daily Check-ins
Daily Check-ins are an opportunity for schools to gauge the mental health needs of their students both in real-time (for immediate individual support) and over time (for systemic support). Check-ins not only provide students with an easy and comfortable way to share, but they also allow educators the opportunity to listen. Checking in acts as an important reminder that students have fluctuating moods and emotions, not just on a daily basis, but throughout each day, informing the way they behave. It’s a simple, accessible way for students to self-report that they need more support, whether they’re struggling with hunger, reporting violent ideation, or suicide ideation; it’s not always easy for a student to just go to a teacher with these sorts of issues. Too often, students are afraid of receiving disciplinary action at the expense of receiving the benefits of reaching out for help. Check-ins give students the ability to get that help.
Introducing daily check-ins provides teachers with the information to choose the right form of support — instead of sending a student to the principal’s office, maybe they’ll send them to the school counselor, along with a snack.
A Culture of Understanding
Check-ins allow teachers to get ahead of and understand students better. Instead of becoming frustrated or annoyed when a student fails to turn in homework or stops participating in class, they have access to the potential why. Why is a student acting out? Or being unusually quiet or shy? Or showing up late to class? Self-guided check-ins give students the opportunity to share their feelings privately, allowing educators to understand their state of mind and provide assistance, encouragement, or intervention as necessary, rather than punishment.
Maybe the reason for an abrupt emotional outburst during class was because that student had a fight with their parent as they were getting dropped off, maybe they hadn’t eaten breakfast, maybe they just broke up with their partner. Introducing daily check-ins provides teachers with the information to choose the right form of support — instead of sending a student to the principal’s office, maybe they’ll send them to the school counselor, along with a snack. Implementing anti-punishment initiatives moves the school from a culture of underlying assumptions and judgment to a culture of empathy and understanding.
Where Do We Go From Here?
We have a long way to go before public school education is equitable and fair for everybody. Excessive disciplinary action has devastating long-term effects; 70% of youth in state and local juvenile systems have a diagnosable mental illness, which means that those youth needed emotional support prior to behaving in a way that got them suspended or expelled. Undesirable behavior is, more often than not, a form of asking for help. But what if we just let students ask for help? That’s what daily mental health check-ins provide. Knowing how students are doing moves us away from discipline and towards support. Check-ins allow schools to give up reactionary behavior based on misunderstanding. What would public schools look like if understanding our most vulnerable students’ needs was the norm? It’s possible to offer support long before undesirable behavior occurs. All we need to do is offer our hand.