Running head: Mini-project 1

Mini-Project Wedgwood Discipline Committee

M. Benton
Concordia University Texas

Mini-project 2
Mini-Project Wedgwood Discipline Committee
My school has been plagued with many discipline problems for the past three years.
These discipline problems are identified as students horse-playing in the hallways, excessive
tardiness, disrespectfulness to teachers, and fighting. Last year our school led the district (Fort
Worth ISD) in referrals, with 3,876 referrals written by teachers. My principal Mr. Rosatelli
decided before the new school year began that the number of infractions would be reduced by 20
percent. The plan he put in place called for the development of committees where teachers could
play roles in building relationships with students in order to enhance the schools climate and
morale. We lost a total of 12 teachers at the end of the school year this year due to student
discipline and lack of respect for teachers on campus. Upon choosing committees during our
back to school in-service week I chose to be a part of the Discipline Committee. I felt this
committee was a great fit for me because I wanted to help create ideas and strategies that would
help reduce the number of infractions written and create ideas on how to build positive
relationships with our students. I felt more positive interventions needed to be implemented in
order for the reduction to occur.
Background of Discipline Committee
The committee is made of five male teachers and two female teachers including the
assistant principal who serves as chair of the committee and myself as co-chair. Each of the
teachers chosen to serve on the committee are strong disciplinarians and all of us are coaches
except for one member. We all have built good relationships with our own students and make a
concerted effort to show all students that we care about them and their wellbeing.
Working with the committee is fun at times but there are times when we have differences
of opinion on the best way to implement new changes that will possibly effect how teachers will

Mini-project 3
be able to discipline students. There have been times when our meeting should have last thirty
minutes and it lasted an hour and a half. I have appreciated that we are willing to sit down and
iron out our differences in opinion and are able to still come together and devise a plan that will
benefit students and allow teachers to build better relationships with their students.
Goals and Objectives
Coming into the committee our assistant principal informed us our number one goal was
to implement processes that would help reduce the number of infractions by 20%. We had other
goals such as; reducing tardiness, reducing student tardiness, and reduce fighting on our campus.
Our objective was to implement these processes in a way where teachers didnt feel like they
were being stripped of their to discipline students, but still place responsibility on the teacher to
use more positive reinforcements in order to reduce writing infractions. We knew we would
have some push back from some teachers, but we had hundreds of infractions for chewing gum
in class to students not having school supplies. We felt that the processes we were going to
implement would get teachers to see it would be more beneficial to have students in class rather
than in the APs office missing valuable learning time.
Data
The data shows from August 2015 to the end of November 2015 there were 630
infractions written. The highest number of infractions were in the categories of Disobedience147, Disrespect to Staff-171, Failure to Follow Directions-199, Off Task Behavior-132, and Rule
Violations-287. Based on this data we knew some strategies needed to be put in place that
allowed teachers to build relationships with their students and by building relationships the
number of infractions in these categories would reduce. Based on the strategies that were
implemented which I will discuss later caused infractions to reduce significantly during the same

Mini-project 4
time frame of August to November for the 2016 school year. Disobedience infractions dropped
from 147 to 38 infractions. Disrespect to Staff infractions dropped from 171 to 53 infractions.
Failure to Follow Directions dropped from 199 to 56 infractions. Off Task Behavior infractions
dropped from 132 to 25 infractions and Rule Violation infractions remained somewhat high but
still dropped from 287 to 162 infractions. In each category infractions were reduced by more
than 50%. I cant say the reductions were solely due to our new strategies or teachers were just
more reluctant to write infractions due to having to follow a step by step process for some
infractions. There were some non-negotiable incidents that warranted automatic infractions such
as fighting. In the fighting category there was very little change. In 2015 from August to
November there were 54 infractions and in 2016 from August to November there have been 49
infractions, a slight drop but very little change in that area.
Methodology of Solving the Problem
Strategies we as a committee created started with the idea of teachers getting to know
their students. Understanding why is the student off task, being disobedient, failing to follow
directions, continue to violate classroom or school rules. Many of my committee members
understood from our years of teaching experience and demographic of students we service that a
majority of them come from broken homes that lack structure. Students who come from broken
homes that lack structure do not always learn from immediate punishment for every mistake they
make. We understood by being coaches, you must counsel with the student and assure them you
are concerned about their wellbeing and want to help teach them how to make better decisions.
Our first step was to create steps that every teacher must follow before they could write an
infraction for being of task, disobedient, disrespect to staff, failure to follow directions. The
steps are as follows: 1st incident, counsel with the student to see what issues they are having and

Mini-project 5
document conversation in Review 360(Positive Behavioral Intervention System). 2nd step, call
and speak to a parent or guardian about teachers concern for students behavior. 3rd step, if
parent contact fails to help student, establish a Parent Teacher and Administrator conference to
discuss ways to help student make better decisions. 4th and final step would to write an infraction
on the student due to all other measures have been exhausted. We have found that due to this
new system we have reduced our number of infractions significantly. Before we implemented
the plan we conducted a schoolwide faculty meeting to show the number of infractions from the
previous year and the categories for the highest number of infractions. During the faculty
meeting we rolled out the new process and ended the faculty meeting by informing teachers if
they have questions about the new process to email the assistant principal with their concerns.
There was some push back, which was expected anytime something new is introduced. The
number one concern for teachers was; when would they have time to counsel with students about
their behaviors. My answer was immediately when students exhibit the negative behavior. The
counseling piece should never be a long drawn out speech to the student. Take time to listen the
student and let the student know what your expectations are of them.
Conclusion
Overall results showed that our committees strategies to addressing the infractions that
were a major concern the previous year were a major success according to the numbers. Again I
cant say if we had 100% buy in from all teachers, and every teacher followed the steps put in
place by the committee before writing an infraction, but the numbers do show that teachers have
written far less infractions this year than last year around the same time.

Mini-project 6
Tables
Table 1
Infraction Data
Year

2015
2016

Disobedience

147
38

Off Task

Disrespect to

Failure to

Behavior

Staff

Follow

171
53

Directions
199
56

132
25

Mini-project 7