Affecting Disproportional Outcomes by Ethnicity and Grade Level: Using Discipline Data to Guide Practice in High School

Teachers report that the behaviors that they are forced to deal with on a daily basis are not typically violent or intense but are frequent and usurp great amounts of instructional time. Office discipline referrals provide a well-established method of tracking student behavior problems across the school, allowing for deeper analysis of contextual predictors of problem behavior. In this case study, an average-size Midwestern high school created and implemented a referral system that identified disproportional referral rates for freshmen and minority students. This article describes the process by which faculty members identified contextual predictors and agreed on simple rules, routines, and physical arrangements across the school. The authors used continuous data analysis to refine prevention measures and resulting data showed steady and consistent decreases among freshmen and minority students. Implications for considering disproportionality in the context of future research are discussed.