Alternatives to Exclusionary School Discipline: An Outline for Educational Administrators

Abstract

Exclusionary discipline practices are intended to help students learn to act appropriately when in reality they have been shown to lead to negative school outcomes and exacerbate the “school to prison pipeline”. This article outlines four promising and lesser known alternative interventions to Exclusionary discipline: Restorative Practices, Check-in/Check-out, Mindfulness-Based Interventions and Cognitive Interventions. The intent of these alternative interventions is to foster positive school outcomes in the greater school and local community. The purpose of this paper is to provide Educational administrators with a practitioner friendly resource outlining current evidence-based alternatives to Exclusionary discipline with strengths, limitations, examples, recommendations and where to go for further information.