001So, good evening. I'm so honored to have the opportunity to review the work of the code of conduct committee. Um, again, good evening to our superintendent, Fox Alder, the cabinet, our board of education trustees. On behalf of our committee, I'd like to highlight our how our work has resulted in the proposed revisions tonight based on review of education law and state guidance, but as importantly in response to our district ideals that recognize that all members of our district community should experience dignity, fairness, and a culture of care. So over the next three slides I'll review the laws and guidance that informed our work. In fact as you can see the code of com commit code of conduct committee itself is required by education law and it is to include the broad constituency of members who
002you'll see on the left. Um this this diversity of stakeholders is required as you'll see on the right to consider the effectiveness, the fairness, the consistency, and the response to our code of conduct. In addition to the education law that requires us to convene and review the code of conduct, ESSA or the federal elementary and secondary schools act required states to review safety and disciplinary procedures. In response, New York State formed the safe schools task force. After significant study, the task force provided six recommendations to New York schools to reduce disparities and reform school discipline. In summary, they are to minimize school re school removals especially in lower grades and you'll see that reflected in our work to adjust address disproportionality in behavioral data. to use data to re reduce these disparities, to focus on
003representative hiring, to shift punitive practices to proactive behavioral approaches, and to provide purposeful professional development to support proactive approaches, including SEAL, social emotional learning, PBIS, positive behavior intervention and supports, and restorative practices that Dr. Lopez will expand upon during her presentation. These recommendations were synthesized into two main focus areas in the 20 2023 guidance from New York State Attorney General James and New York State Education Department Commissioner Betty Rosa. I'm actually well I'll review them shortly. I'm going to actually also feature one of our um MBK fellows, Aiden Menddees, who in a brief expert excerpt from his TED talk, I think um illustrated the need to look at um disagregated data and disproportionately very eloquently. Um so one of four recommendations made in this 2023 guidance uh again one of the four um was to
004look at um behavioral approaches. Um it mandated districts to implement discipline policies and practices to design and imp and be implemented in a non-discriminatory way to ensure that all students have an equal educational opportunity. And this is based on student discipline data. um from the US Department of Education that saw um this dis disproportionality involves or reflects um elevated levels along among students of color, particularly black students and students with learning differences likely attributable attributable to implicit and systematic biases. Um secondly, the second guidance was schools should expand efforts to train personnel on developmentally appropriate restorative alternatives and again I will expand on some of that and um Dr. Lopez's will will as well. So now it is my privilege to share with you um some of the most important professional development we had from
005our own. You see so many of the different types of statistics that we look at today that represent black and brown students, adults of many different kinds of relationships and households. We can look at higher incarceration rates. We can look at higher dropout rates. We look at higher poverty rates. All the things that define our people for what? To be labeled as failures. One of the things that severely perpetuates this this level of uh of failure in the school system for students of color is the zero tolerance policy which essentially leaves students such as students of color, lowincome students, students with disabilities and LGBT students and the margin of people where as soon as something happens, as soon as you make the most minuscule of mistakes, there is no room left to grow from it.
006Especially when it's any kind of physical violence, there is no room left to learn. It is only punishment and failure. We can see that without the zero tolerance policy standard, black students are already double as likely to be suspended for whatever mistakes that they may be doing. But along with the zero tolerance policy, it only perpetuates the statistic. There is no benefit to this. So, I want to just give it up for Aiden um again in his very first TED talk really beautifully um articulating um the school to prison pipeline looking at and again I'll illustrate that that's national data um but as we'll look at also we we see um some similar not um quite as elevated but similar trends in our in our own district data. So make sure As we move to
007the next slide, these two main categories that are outlined in the 2023 guidance from um Attorney General James and Commissioner Rosa really frames, I'm sorry, really framed the two categories um of our focus areas to as we looked um as we informed our work over the course of the year. and they were again um for districts to implement non-discrimin non-discriminatory discipline policies and practices in response to the US Department of Education research and number two um to expand our efforts to train school staff and restorative practices. And as you'll see in the coming slides, these two recommendations become the two overarching categories that focused our work in order to respond to focus area one that asked us to ensure our discipline policies are non-discriminatory in design and implementation. And here you can see that that
008is our um our focus. We reviewed at every meeting um disagregated behavioral data and again looking at the national trends we looked at with specific attention to our male, black and um students with learning and behavioral differences. We engaged in professional development and looking at our behavioral looking at our um our data we engaged in corresponding prof professional development. Um based on the trends that we in unc uncovered in looking at our own data that included the rights of classified students and the increase um and exploring the increase in behavioral referrals for black females again in our own data. Most importantly, however, after reflecting on our disag disagregated behavioral data, we explored alternatives to suspension to reverse the trends um among disagregated group um disproportionately affected groups. Um after exploring data that set a shared
009understanding of disproportionality, we turned our attention to focus area two, restorative alternatives to pun punitive punishment to address this disproportionality. So as you can see here, the real work is where the rubber hits the road is we finalized the minor form um that is used to document level one or in other words classroom managed behaviors or the first um level of behav behavior. The minor form encourages teachers to identify the time and the location to re reveal patterns of behavior. It also provides an opportunity for educators to identify strategies they use to deescalate behavior before, during, and after an incident. Um, secondly, as you can see, um, we also continue to evolve the progressive behavior intervention and support rubric that clearly clearly identifies levels of behavior as well as corresponding supports. What are strategies we're
010putting into place? What is communication? Consistent communication we're putting into place in addition to any disciplinary responses that may follow. And this is again to support consistency and the fair implementation of the code of conduct as well as to set a restorative approach. Thirdly and finally um we refined the implementation of the rubric. So I did presentations either either I or um representatives from our committee um did at least two two presentations last year. We did one um kind of uh understanding setting. We um where we introduced it and then throughout the year we also looked at school specific case studies to calibrate our use of the um calibrate our use of the rubric. We also use that opportunity to gather feedback from um from educators to refine both the rubric and the minor form.
011An example of our adjustments is we actually divided the minor forms into an early elementary and upper elementary form um because educators found that it was too cumbersome to use with behaviors listed that weren't relevant um to their students. Um after reflecting on the recommendations of the safe school task force and the corresponding 2023 state guidance, our data review work on the minor form and rubric. We um we also reflected it would be critical to review the language of the code of conduct. Additionally, we've reflected on the essential question posed by our superintendent challenging us to review if our policies and procedures are are impeding the equity seek we seek. In our sub subcommittee, we reflected that while policies can impede equity, we seek that conversely, we could advance restorative and equitable practices through shifting
012the language of the PO policy accordingly from the language moving from the language of zero tolerance to the spirit of restorative practices that seeks to keep our community whole by proactively teaching necessary skills and repairing the community when skills are forgotten. are not demonstrated. So while the proposed revisions have been available to the public for 30 days, mainly the revisions fall under about five major themes or categories. Um really a purposeful alignment with district vision and beliefs. Um, number two, integration and definition of restorative practices. Number three, alignment of language and procedures with the progressive behavior intervention and support rubric as really the driver of our our um restorative practices. Number four, revising gendered language and practices. And number five, revising um criminalizing language shifting away. And we'll cover that more later. But instead of
013talking about students as disruptive, um, we get more descriptive of behavior that interferes with teaching and learning. And while we'll look to briefly, we'll look briefly at examples of shifts in language in each category. It's also to important to highlight the revisions based on careful review. Um, Stephanie Robach and I from Keenan Beam went um through every word of the code of conduct. um and she made um some important recommendations as a result. Um importantly, we linked the acceptable use and remote learning policy to make it clear that the code of conduct applies um during remote learning and vice versa. We also included the surge in general advice about technology for students under 13. Um we linked student use of the internet internet enabled device um policy that was just passed um that Owen referred
014to earlier. And importantly um we define that demographic demographic data must be collected in regard to the enforcement of um the internet enabled device policy and that no suspensions can be um employed as a result of of not following the policy. um including um uh again being specific in the inclusion um of of language based on recent case law and SED guidance as illustrated in the last four points about inclusions of specific weapons, updating the language in about detention procedures for in school suspension um and again um identifying that only school employees can provide behavioral um consequences. Returning to our revisions based on the categories that we we identified, our main focus was to infuse the code of conduct with our district vision and commitment to restorative practices by including for example the district mission
015statement and the value and definition of restorative practices. As we transition to the next slide that looks at how alignment between this philosophy um and alignment and the actual alignment to practice, I'd like to read the introduction to the rubric drafted by the code of conduct committee. We recognize the effectiveness of restorative approaches and other progressive disciplinary measures that build positive relationships. These interventions are a shift away from harsh and punitive disciplinary responses. Instead, they educate students about the harm caused by their actions while rece while seeking to reunite them with the school community. And I think that's so important um because again this was drafted by representatives of every school that included educators and ad administrators alike. Um, so in order to realize this introductory statement of the rubric, we also aligned the code
016of conduct with the language and procedures of the rubric. Specifically, we included guidance and descriptions of the levels of progressive behavior, interventions, and support rubric. Um, we changed expectations for student behavior to align with the levels and the descriptions of each level. and we referenced um the rubric as the system for all procedures with corresponding detail throughout um the code. Um additional to revisions to the code of conduct we develop was to address discrimination and gendered language language or practices as you'll see in the next slide. Um some some examples were again changing language that was gendered as far as him or herselves to themselves. Um we also identified that our dress code was not um was um was gendered. Um we also realized it that there was a need to provide some linking to
017um DASA practices and definition. Um so that's included in this category as well. Um similarly to responded to learning that criminalizing language and practices feed the school to prison pipeline. We were dedicated to address and revise criminalizing language and practices. For example, as I think I mentioned earlier, we shifted everywhere where students were descri described as disruptive to describing the behavior that was being um displayed. For example, substantially interfering with teaching and learning. Um we also were very specific in changing language um that is criminalizing for example by um violation aggressor um or I'm sorry perpetrator. Um we also just changed many um titles throughout um to include more restorative language. And essentially, I believe that the board received an executive summary um that gave a more detailed um view of the changes to the
018code of conduct and that the changes the proposed edits have been available to the public for 30 days. But essentially um my my copy of the slide is not up there but I would just like to recognize um in addition to the whole committee Latoya Langley who really spearheaded this work and when she began it or when I I at the at the beginning of our work together I remember her showing the definition of the word discipline and it being a derivative of the um of Latin word deier which means the foundation Um and again um is the root for discipline discipline uh with instruction, teaching, learning or knowledge or also meaning a pupil, student or follower. And that the essence of our code of conduct and the proposed revisions are really to ensure um
019that we're driving learning and um social emotional learning for our students and that again um we're seeking restorative practices that make our community whole um and whole together as learners.