Tippecanoe School Board Approves Student Discipline Plan
Posted
David Slone-dslone@timesuniononline.com
AKRON – During the Tippecanoe Valley School Board meeting Monday night, the board approved the “Evidence-Based Plan for Improving Student Behavior and Discipline”. According to Superintendent Brett Boggs, in 2009 the Indiana legislature passed House Enrolled Act 1419, which required the Indiana Department of Education to develop a model evidence-based plan for improving discipline and behavior within schools. The Act passed as a result of the growing concern that the education of Indiana students was being negatively impacted by punitive, exclusionary and disproportionately administered discipline practices in schools. Act 1419 requires that by no later than July 1, the governing body of each school corporation must work with parents to develop and submit to the IDOE an evidence-based plan for improving student behavior and discipline in the school corporation, based on a model developed by the IDOE. Valley’s plan was developed during the 2010-11 school year by a committee of four parent representatives, four teacher representatives and four administrators. Boggs chaired the committee. The Act recommends the development of building-level plans during the 2011-12 school year, followed by implementation of those plans during the 2012-13 school year. Full implementation of the corporation and building-level plans follows during the 2013-14 school year, Boggs said, with required data to be submitted to the IDOE. “You can see it’s a multi-year process,” Boggs said. The committee put in a lot of time on the plan, Boggs said, and he thanked them for doing that. The state plan has seven guidelines, each with an expected result. “They provided that for us and left it up to us to develop a goal,” Boggs said. The committee also developed strategies, and the state expects schools to note who is responsible for each strategy. “I think we’re in pretty good shape with this,” Boggs said. “I think the task for us was putting a lot of what we’re doing now into this plan. We can always get better, too.”
