You now have until September 19 to comment on a proposed new Code of Conduct policy for city schools. The deadline, which was originally set for the end of August, has been extended because the response from parents has been poor.
The Rochester Community Task Force on School Climate released a draft of the new policy in July, and since then, about 280 people completed an online survey about the proposal. About half of the responses came from teachers and students, while less than 15 percent came from parents and guardians.
The task force has been working for months on a code that moves away from suspensions as the primary disciplinary tool, to a policy based on restorative justice principles and social-emotional support.
The new draft policy strongly advocates prevention of student behavior problems such as fighting, rather than intervention. It distinguishes four levels of student behavior, and suspensions would be permitted only for levels 3 and 4 — the most serious offenses.
The 65-page proposal is on the district’s website: www.rcsdk12.org/codeofconduct, where public comments can be made as part of an online survey. Comments can also be emailed to ctf@racf.org.
This article appears in Aug 26 – Sep 1, 2015.
A restorative approach is ideal in lieu of suspensions however that includes the student-youth taking responsibility for their actions and the effect-harm of that offense.Appropriate consequences are ‘negotiated’.I feel strongly thst the school district should be having lots of conversations with RPD to build-bridge relationships between school community and RPD.If the RCSD is restorative and RPD not it will undermine positive outcomes. The process of being restorative is about support, resources and conferences, and All involved communicating,listening to each other. Schools need to have year long workshops for dealing with anger management.being leaders and not followers,conflict resolution,etc to help students deal with these issues as they come up.Patrick Dwyer