Build Awareness

• Educate law makers, school boards, principals, hearing officers, teachers, parents, and students.  Tell them 1) about the negative impact that out-of-school
  suspension has on students and 2) about the ineffectiveness of low and zero tolerance polices at reducing misbehavior and making schools safer.
   

• For instance, you can print out our factsheet (click on link) and post it in your office, schools, or send it by e-mail to people you think need to be informed.
   

• Ask yourself and others if you think students who are suspended and expelled are entitled to receive quality supplemental and alternative education options. 
  Start here by examining how other states deal with alternative education.
   

• Ask yourself if there is and if there should be a distinction between discipline and punishment.
  

Know what the law says and understand what it does not say regarding school discipline

• Become familiar with Washington's Constitution which states that:
  
  “It is the paramount duty of the state to make ample provision for the education of all children residing within its borders.”  Const. art. IX, § 1. art.
   IX, § 1.  

• Become familiar with Washington statutory law regarding school discipline.  Start with RCW 28A.600.
   

• Know the school discipline regulations created by the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI), one of WA state's agencies that regulates public schools.
  Start here with chapter WAC 392-400.
   

• Gain a working knowledge of how other states have addressed the issue of school discipline and alternatives to education.
  A good place to start is the Education Commission of the States also check out their compilation of different states alternative education policies: Alternative Education: What States are Doing?

 Advocate for Change

• Know which legislators represent your district as well as those legislators who are active in issues such as education, juvenile justice, and child welfare: Washington State Legislature
   

• Currently, Washington state does not have a system to collect data correlating school discipline and race and ethnicity. Where districts do collect data, the data shows that youth of color are disproportionately disciplined and disciplined more harshly than their white peers. In 2008, the Washington legislature failed to pass a bill that would mandate that districts collect data related to school discipline. Advocate for data legislation in the future. Without this data, it is difficult to speak about racial disproportionality in school discipline in anything, but anecdotal terms. Data is a powerful tool for establishing that negative patterns in school discipline exist and for fighting for the rights of students of color.
   

• The Washington ACLU is actively looking at how systems can change to promote students' rights - contact the ACLU for information about their efforts to support them.
   

• Ask the school board to clarify its interpretation of a particularly different WACs.

Support Evidence Based and Promising Practice Approaches to School Discipline

• One e of evidence-based school discipline practice is PBIS.
   

• Try the links below for more information on PBIS

                PBIS Home Page
                www.pbis.org

                PBIS in Illinois
                www.pbisillinois.org
                http://www.pbisillinois.org/Downloads/Annual%20Reports/FY07_Short_Rpt092407.pdf

                PBIS in Maryland
                End of year report - www.pbismaryland.org/

                Published Research on PBIS
                Selected References from George Sugai
                Is PBIS Evidence Based