School Disciplinary Cases

1. Describe the main points of the documents
This research brief took a look into the Colorado School System Disciplinary Practices. Ryan Pfleger and Kathryn Wiley conducted research on discretionary behavior (which includes “detrimental behavior”, “disobedience and defiance” and “other code of conduct violations”) and the frequent use of out-of-school suspensions. As stated in their research, behaviors they considered discretionary behavior combined for 85.5% of yearly behavioral incidents and on average, were more likely assigned out-of-school suspensions than any other disciplinary action (Pfleger & Wiley, 2012). Between the years of 2008-2010, there were around 125,000 disciplinary actions to students each year during this time. The main point that can be concluded from these statements is schools are issuing out-of-school suspension at a high rate and even though children that committed more serious actions (e.g. drugs, alcohol, tobacco incidents were 7% of annual student discipline, and 1% were infractions, including first and second degree assaults) make up a smaller percent of infractions they are comparable when it comes to the amount of in- and out-of-school suspension. Schools are more likely to assign out-of-school suspension than any other …show more content…
“Disciplinary actions are assigned to Black students five times the rate of Asian students and three times the rate of white students (2012).” Their analysis discovered that despite the fact that Black students make up 6% of the student population, they were 12% of those that were disciplined. Also, they looked into having gender as a factor and found that males are more likely than their female counterparts to receive disciplinary actions. The male population was assigned disciplinary actions at a rate of 21.7% compared to 8.2% for