New, Exciting Project: A Unified Disciplinary Scheme

Hello, everybody. I hope everyone is having a great summer. Mine has started out very mellow.

When we last met as school was getting out, many of us VHS ROP teachers agreed that we'd had a rough year and that part of the problem was the deteriorating disciplinary situation at Vintage. For whatever reason, our kids just didn't care, and we thought it might have been because there weren't real and timely consequences for their actions.

I instituted a pretty tough "self-reponsibility, self-respect" scheme in which kids started each 1/3 semester with 105 points and lost 5 points for every uncleared absence, each tardy, each wasted work period and each behavior infraction. I felt the toughness was needed. Some of my kids really responded and some didn't.

Discussing this with my colleagues, it seemed that everyone liked my ideas but felt they needed to be softened a bit so that we didn't have kids just give up with a "I can't catch up anyway, I'm going to get an F, so why even try?"

But everyone agreed that having a uniform ROP Disciplinary Policy that all of us could sign on to and implement would help us not only to better manage our classrooms, help teach our students the value of a good work ethic, but also to present a viable model for the rest of VHS to test and utilize.

I've listened to ideas from Susan, Chris and Wayne, and I've come up with an scheme that blends them all and maybe could work for everybody. Here it is:

Each student can earn a 100 points a week for their "Work Ethic" assessment.

Each week students can earn 25 points for no uncleared absences, 25 points for no tardies, 25 points for good work periods, and 25 points for good behavior.

Uncleared absences, tardies, wasted work periods and behavior infractions cost 5 points.

A student can blow it for a week and end up with a low score, but they get a clean slate each week. They can turn the corner anytime they like.

A student can clear any lost points by doing an hour-long extra credit assignment at home. This assignment can add points back for any week a student wants during a progress-report period (six weeks).

A student's Work Ethic score for a grading period is an average of the student's weekly score for the period.

This assessment, known by the name "Work Ethic," can be any percentage we like. I'd probably prefer 50% for the Work Ethic score, with the other 50% divided between projects and tests/assignments. We don't have to agree on that: each teacher can decide what value to place on the Work Ethic score. But it may be important to have uniformity, so that all ROP students know they get a fair shake from each teacher, with no "soft" teachers for the kids to prefer. A clear, uniform message is the best message: We are a jobs program, and we favor self-responsibility and self-respect. It will lead to success in life.

I welcome more input, more participation. Any thoughts? Any recommendations? Put them in the Comments section.