2. School Board
WorkSession
Purpose
School BoardWork Session
Discipline is complex and cannot be fully addressed in a single
meeting
The intent is an overview, not comprehensive
3. School Board
WorkSession
Outline
BriefWA State Discipline History
Recent DisciplineChanges inWA state
Current DisciplineChallenges in Omak
Omak’s Proactive Solutions at Each Building
Q & A / Comments (Board &Audience)
4. Washington
State
Discipline
History
Historical Context – left to individual schools, slowly adding RCW’s
to address discipline expectations throughout the entire state
Big Change in 1994 – corporal punishment was outlawed
Most Recent Change in 2019 – why?
5. Disproportionality – Address disciplinary discrimination in
administration of discipline (SpEd and minorities)
Administer discipline in ways that support students in meeting
behavioral expectations and keep students in class to maximum
extent possible
Move away from zero-tolerance policies (except guns) and ensure
due process for students
Facilitate collaboration between staff, student and parents to
ensure successful re-entry following suspension/expulsion
Washington
State
Discipline
WhyChange
8. As the pandemic drags on toward the end of its second year, many educators say they are
facing an uptick in student misbehavior that appears to be associated with challenges
related to the return to in-person learning after extended periods of remote or hybrid
instruction.
Nearly half of all school and district leaders (44 percent) say they are receiving more threats of violence by students now
than they did in the fall of 2019, according to the most recent EdWeek Research Center monthly survey.
More generally, two out of three teachers, principals, and district leaders say students are misbehaving more these days
than they did in the fall of 2019.
The findings of the survey—which was administered Dec. 15-29 to 286 district leaders, 199 principals, and 725 teachers—
echo anecdotal reports this fall that pointed to an increase in student threats and discipline problems….
9. A 14-year-old in the CentralValley was arrested Monday after he allegedly threatened to kill two classmates. On Sunday
night, police arrested a Buena Park High School student after he allegedly shared a photo of a person holding a gun and
captioned it with a warning to classmates to stay away from school “if you wanna live.”
And after a social media threat was investigated at Santa Monica High School and campus was deemed safe, Supt. Ben Drati
sent a message to the school community clarifying a recent spate of high school threats to his worried community: “There
were other threats in the area that were confused with the (Santa Monica High School) threat that was determined to be an
isolated incident, not related to any other threats you may have heard about at Palisades, Hamilton or Fairfax High School.”
Months after students returned to campuses — and a week after four were killed in a shooting at Michigan high school —
multiple schools in Southern California and elsewhere have reported receiving threats of
violence, compounding campus tensions at a time when school administrators and teachers
say students are increasingly acting out in class, showing aggressive behavior and fighting.
10. Jan. 2, 2022, 6:01 AM PST / Updated Jan. 3, 2022, 10:09 AM PST
By Erin Einhorn
The list of challenges facing school administrators as they head into the new year is long and
daunting: staff shortages, battles over mask-wearing, academic deficits, terrifying sickness
and disruptive quarantines.
On top of that, administrators are also navigating difficult questions about how best to respond to student discipline issues,
including violence, which some educators say has been a growing concern this school year.
“In the first nine weeks of school, we had more physical aggression in terms of fights than we
probably had in the last maybe three or four years combined,” said CrystalThorpe, the principal of
Fishers Junior High School in suburban Indianapolis, who said her students had difficulty transitioning back to full-time in-
person classes…..
11. “There has to be this grace and compassion that’s extended to young people who have lived through the world since March
2020, this unparalleled event that all of us are still kind of sitting with and fully understanding,” said Andrew Hairston, the
education justice director atTexas Appleseed, a civil rights organization. “It is a perilous moment for young people. If you’re
approaching it with the same zero tolerance philosophy that has guided schools for 70 years, then you’re certainly going to
see a number of fallouts from it.”
Ronn Nozoe, the CEO of the National Association of Secondary School Principals, said he’s heard from members around the
country that they’re seeing higher-than-usual rates of fights, drug use and other discipline issues
and are struggling with how to respond.
His members don’t want to suspend or expel students, he said, but they have limited resources to address the emotional
causes of students’ behavior while also keeping their buildings safe. “These are deep problems,” Nozoe said. “You know, ‘We
don’t have a place to live,’ or ‘My parents lost their job,’ or ‘My uncle died,’ or ‘I don’t have hope.’These are not issues that
you’re going to go to a counselor for 30 minutes and be done with.These are issues that are deep, and some of those issues
are not resolvable at the school level.”
Page 2
12. Some kids have returned to in-person learning only to be kicked right back out
by TARA GARCÍA MATHEWSON January 20, 2022
The Hechinger Report is a national nonprofit newsroom that reports on one topic: education
January 20, 2022
The Oakland Unified School District in California logged 768 suspensions through mid-November, according to the district’s
chief of staff, Curtiss Sarikey.At that pace, Sarikey said the district will probably have more suspensions this year than it did
pre-pandemic. In Charlotte-Mecklenburg, North Carolina, 4,402 students were suspended from the start of school through
Dec. 1.
In some ways, the return to exclusionary discipline is a predictable outcome of the chaos of the pandemic.Teachers and
administrators nationwide are stretched especially thin. Staffing shortages are contributing to and being compounded by
teacher and administrator burnout. At all grade levels, veteran teachers describe worse student behavior than they’ve ever
seen.
Most students went a year and a half without regular interaction with large numbers of their
peers.Their social skills atrophied or, at the very least, stagnated. And they were thrust back
into learning environments full of rules. Students always require an element of re-
socialization following long summer breaks, but pandemic school closures created an
unprecedented challenge. Add to that the trauma of the pandemic itself — the fear and anxiety, the closeness to
illness and death, and the financial strain on families caused by a disrupted economy and society.
14. Symptoms of depression and anxiety have doubled during the pandemic, with 25% of
youth experiencing depressive symptoms and 20% experiencing anxiety symptoms, according to Murthy’s 53-page
advisory.There also appear to be increases in negative emotions or behaviors such as impulsivity and irritability —
associated with conditions such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or ADHD.
And, in early 2021, emergency department visits in the United States for suspected suicide attempts
were 51% higher for adolescent girls and 4% higher for adolescent boys compared to
the same time period in early 2019, according to research cited in the advisory.
16. Industries across the world are struggling to find employees
Omak SD open positions - teachers, paras, specialists, counselor
Shortage of substitutes (even with increased pay)
More absences create a lack of consistency for students
Principals are regular substitutes
17. Months after the academic year began, districts across the country have yet to solve crippling staff shortages that have
forced a range of drastic adjustments.
InVermont, school board members are grabbing sponges and buckets to help the short-staffed custodial crew. In Nevada,
principals are covering classrooms and vacuuming hallways — one is even cleaning toilets. In Massachusetts, National
Guard troops have climbed behind the wheel to get kids from home to school. Around the country, teachers
are missing planning periods to cover for absent colleagues, principals are covering classes,
and the demand for substitutes has skyrocketed.
But shortages in staff that some call unprecedented are creating chaos at a time when educators are already struggling
with public health imperatives: coronavirus testing, contact tracing, quarantining, mask requirements, vaccine mandates,
cleaning.
“This is not a recovery year,” said Libby Bonesteel, superintendent ofVermont’s Montpelier Roxbury Public Schools
District. “This is a survival year.”
18. Current
Discipline
Challenges
Additional
Issues
Pandemic has created inconsistency for students
Remote Learning or Face-to-Face
Social media
TikTok Challenges
Some students became addicted to vaping
More vaping/marijuana use than ever before
Society has added to the challenges that schools face
Political/Civil unrest across the country
Do we have to follow all rules? If not, which ones do we follow?
20. Effective Jan 1, 2022, HB 1140 requires that law enforcement must provide a juvenile
with access to an attorney, in person or by phone or video, before the juvenile waives
any constitutional rights if a law enforcement officer:
1. questions a juvenile during a custodial interrogation;
2. detains the juvenile based on probable cause of involvement in criminal activity; or
3. requests the juvenile provide consent to an evidentiary search of the juvenile or the
juvenile's property, dwellings, or vehicles under the juvenile's control.
23. When a student in special education gets suspended or expelled, the
school district must follow Washington State laws and regulations
governing discipline that apply to all students. At the same time,
however, there are additional special education discipline protections
for when school districts remove a student who is eligible, or deemed
eligible, for special education from their educational placement.
24. Thus, a student in special education may be involved in two processes
simultaneously:
1.General education discipline process, following the rules and
procedures to address whether the student actually engaged in the
misconduct, including any decisions about the length and type of
removal; and
2. Special education discipline rules and procedures to make decisions
about whether a student will be removed from their current special
education placement, and if so, the services that will be provided to the
student.
25. Students eligible for special education, in general, may not be
removed from their educational placement for more than 10 school
days in a row or be subjected to a series of removals that total more
than 10 school days in a year.
When a student is removed from their educational placement for more
than 10 school days, a manifestation determination meeting must be held
within 10 days of the removal. This meeting is to determine whether the
student’s behavior was a manifestation of their disability.
A Manifestation Determination is a distinct process only for students in
Special Education that is separate from any other general education
disciplinary meetings or procedures.
26. The exception to the rule, however, is when a student's
misbehavior involves Special Circumstances – weapons, illegal
drugs, or serious bodily injury. A manifestation determination
meeting must still occur, but, the student may be removed for up
to 45 school days regardless of whether the student’s behavior
was a manifestation of their disability.
An Interim Alternative Educational Setting (IAES) must then be
established so that the student continues to be provided service.
27. Any questions regarding Special Education discipline,
please contact me:
John Holcomb
Director of Special Programs
(509) 826-8342
johnholcomb@omaksd.org
31. Second Step
All students receive weekly lessons from their
classroom teacher
Lessons focus on:
• Emotion Management
• Problem Solving
• Empathy & Communication
• Impulse Control
32. Mr. Miller reteaching recess
expectation
Teachers teach and reteach the
expectations for each learning activity
33. Some students may need a little more…
Here are some things we might do to help a student struggling with
behavior, lagging social skills or social-emotional needs.
• Student Support Team
• Check in with the counselor
• Social emotional groups
• Behavior intervention plans
• Check in, check out
• Incentive charts
• Zones of Regulation
41. OMS January Plan
January 4th Welcome Back Assemblies in the PAC
Reiterate expectations and introduction of Character Strong
6th Grade ~ 8:10AM
7th Grade ~ 9:57AM
8th Grade ~ 9:44AM
Behavior Strategies
Defiance & Disrespect Definitions
10/10 Rule. No students out of class during the first and last 10 minutes
Buckskin Bucks. Reward system
Kahoot Activity: Reteach Rules, Procedures and Expectations
Character Strong Rollout
Lessons will begin Tuesday January 5th
Training will be January 10th during PDM
Calendar of lessons taught each day for each grade level shared with all staff
Website: http://curriculum.characterstrong.com/
Parent Volunteers Wanted!
46. Omak’s
Proactive
Solutions
Additional
Increased student supports – AP’s, Counselors, Mental Health
fromTribe and OBHC
Staff training to support students (2nd Step, Character Strong)
Ongoing meetings with parents, Chief of Police, County
Prosecutor
Increased security – vaping/marijuana sensors, additional
cameras, exploring school safety personnel
Increased staffing in schools and on buses and provided smaller
class sizes
47. Q &A /
Comments
Ground Rules
3 minutes per person
Civility in questions and responses
We will not discuss personnel or specific students in a public
meeting
Each of us are available for further meetings
School Board or Superintendent or Principals can respond
Each school has a parent committee that has regular meetings
and frequently discuss discipline
