Middle school discipline: Its effects and the perceived impacts of alternative intervention programs

In New York City, middle school educators experience student behaviors that adversely affect the school environment and academic achievement. These middle school teachers indicate that the current traditional measures used to address these issues are ineffective. As a result, there is now an appeal from these middle school teachers to institute new and innovative strategies to address these discipline-related concerns. The two main issues addressed by the current qualitative research were: (a) the student-related behaviors that led to the labeling of some New York City middle schools as impact or persistently and potentially dangerous schools; and (b) educators' perceptions of the positive effects of non-traditional or alternative discipline intervention measures on students' behavior and academic achievement. A total of 129 New York City middle school educators were selected through convenience and purposeful sampling. The data were collected through multi-modal approaches that included surveys, interviews, focus group discussions, whole-school and classroom observations, and the review of discipline-related documents. Data were organized in themes centered on: (a) common student-related behaviors and the impact on the school environment; (b) educators' responses to the behaviors; and (c) educators' perception of the current discipline intervention measures and the positive effects of implementing non-traditional discipline intervention measures. Themes were analyzed, evaluated, and interpreted by identifying the recurring patterns and common ideas that emerged within the accumulated data. The results indicated that: (a) students' behaviors such as fights, horse-playing, and the verbal abuse of school staff led to the assigned school labels of impact or persistently and potentially dangerous schools; (b) the discipline issues negatively affected classroom dynamics such as teacher effectiveness and student productivity; and (c) educators strongly supported the implementation of non-traditional or alternative disciplinary measures such as Positive Behavior Intervention Support. These findings provide the basis for the New York City Department of Education to adopt measures to improve student discipline. Educators from across various school districts can be trained to effectively and efficiently use these measures to help them address the discipline issues they face on a daily basis. Future research may examine if improvements in student discipline can positively affect students' academic achievement.