by AmericanBoy

Created on: July 18, 2009   Last Updated: March 29, 2010

The issue of school discipline ranks as one of the biggest challenges in education. There have been several approaches attempted in an effort to effectively address this challenge. One of the more common approaches is placing suspended students in an alternative school setting. Clearly, there are cases where students require removal from the general school environment.

Student safety is foremost among those reasons. The safety of students and teachers must be counted as a top priority in any school setting. When a student's behavior is habitually violent, it can be argued that  removing the violent student and placing him in an alternative environment will substantively discourage overall acts of violence within the school setting. This will help to provide all students with a safe and orderly classroom.

Another argument in favor of alternative schools has to do with establishing appropriate school culture. Recent studies have shown that the likeliness of other students to act out within the classroom dramatically increases when there is the perception that unacceptable student behavior is tolerated. Allowing unacceptable student behavior to go unaddressed seems to actually encourage additional occurrence's from a broader range of offenders.This will clearly impact the overall school culture, and establish a dysfunctional norm that is difficult to suppress without the threat of re-assignment.

Not only does school culture change, but valuable resources are directed away from the primary purpose of educating students when that teacher is confronted with a habitual behavior issue. Without the option of alternative schools, it is more likely that administration will allow chronically misbehaving students to remain in the classroom. Expulsion is wrought with paperwork, justifications, and legal issues. It is simply easier to re-assign a student. For example, it is actually against federal law to expel a special education student with an IEP or suspend that student for more than 10 days per school year. Not only does this impact the teacher, but then the entire classroom is held hostage by misbehaving students. The use of alternative schools to address and redirect this type of negative behavior can allow the class the needed respite from this drain on school resources.

As is the case with most policies, I encourage a balanced approach to its implementation. Here are some practical parameters to follow:

1. Alternative schools should be short-term with certain

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