Multilevel Risk and Protective Factors for Exclusionary School Discipline Outcomes

Purpose: Youth who are suspended or expelled from school are more likely to be held back a grade, drop out of school, and become involved in the criminal justice system.  This pathway from the disciplinarian’s office to the juvenile courtroom, often referred to as the “school to prison pipeline,” has increasingly been the focus of scholarly research, community organizing, and national policy reform. Using data from the largest urban district in Colorado, this study identifies risk and protective factors at each stage in the school discipline process, from office referral to out-of-school suspension, expulsion and law enforcement referral. The study was designed to inform the development of policies and practices to improve student behavior and reduce the use of exclusionary discipline sanctions in schools.

Methods:  The primary research method was secondary analysis of administrative data from Denver Public Schools (DPS).

Sample:  The sample included all students (n=87,997) in grades K to 12 who were enrolled in DPS schools (n=183) during the 2011-2012 school year.  The sample was 58% Latino, 20% White, 15% Black, 3% Asian, 3% Multiracial and 1% Pacific Islander. 49% percent of the student population was male and 67% were eligible for free and reduced lunch.  12% of all students were referred to the school discipline office one or more times during the school year.  Among those students referred to the office, nearly 46% received one or more out of school suspensions, 0.7% were expelled, and 5% were referred to law enforcement. 

            Measures: The secondary dataset was created by merging school-level compositional data with student-level discipline records and demographic information downloaded from the district’s student information system (Infinite Campus).  Dependent variables were office discipline referral, out-of-school suspension, expulsion, and law enforcement referral. Risk and protective factors included racial background, family poverty, special education status, emotional disability, participation in gifted and talented program, homelessness, office referral reasons over the course of the school year, receipt of an alternative to suspension (restorative approaches, in-school suspension, and/or behavior contracts), and school composition. Previous research has documented significant relationships between these covariates and school discipline outcomes.

Analytic Approach: Separate multilevel logistic regression models were created to estimate the relationships between risk and protective factors and exclusionary school discipline outcomes.

Results:  Findings indicate that race, gender, and disability are enduring risks across key decision points in the school discipline process. Conversely, restorative interventions and in-school suspensions had a protective effect on students’ likelihood of out-of-school suspension.

 

Conclusions and Implications:  Most encouraging are findings that restorative approaches and in-school interventions are promising strategies to managing student discipline problems and keeping youth in an educational environment.  A critical area for future research is to conduct experimental studies to rule out the influence of confounding or unmeasured variables and demonstrate the causal impact of these interventions on discipline outcomes.