Zero Policy Approach To School Discipline

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Every year, more than three million students are suspended in school. These include the seventh grade student who got expelled for touching her teacher while she was yawning, and also the middle school boy that was expelled for hugging his friend in the hallway. Let us not also forget about the six year old boy who was suspended for crying during class. With the zero-tolerance policy in a number of schools, suspensions and expulsions are quick to come. However, most suspensions are not needed, and unsuccessful in retaining discipline. The zero policy approach to school discipline is ineffective and needs to be changed. How to handle discipline problems in school has been a problem for many years. The latest trend in school discipline has been the zero tolerance policy. This policy embraces suspensions for repeat offenders. However, suspensions have become a …show more content…

The CMCD, or the Consistency Management and Cooperative Discipline program, is a two-part program, as the name suggests. It is a disciplinary program that is designed for an elementary level school. The first part, Consistency Management, is focused on organization in the learning environment. Teachers are encouraged to have everything strictly organized and in a routine to create a structured environment that promotes learning. The second part, Cooperative Discipline, is centered on giving students the opportunity to be classroom leaders. Students are given small leadership roles by the teacher to give them a sense of responsibility. These jobs can be passing out papers, assisting the substitute teacher, or making class decisions. The goal of the leadership roles is to allow the students to grow into responsible and self disciplined young adults. The CMCD has proved to be a very effective disciplinary program as multiple schools reported significantly lower behavior problems and office

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