Students on Discipline
Students have noted the need for a balanced and tempered approach to discipline policies and procedures and have also observed harsher punishments for students of color compared to White students.
“We need more accessible mental health support – especially in the return from a highly stressful global pandemic. In student council, we reviewed evidence showing that mental health resources (improve school environment). But instead of investing in mental health supports, my school invested in additional security guards.”
— Alexis
“I want to talk about school support systems and the importance of teachers that recognize not only the negatives, but the positive things teenagers are doing. It’s important to make teenagers feel confident in the positive things that they are doing, and give them attention for it, so that they don’t seek that attention by doing bad things.”
— Jaydah
“A lot of the time when you meet with adults at school, they only focus on what you’ve done badly and why you’re wrong. I was used to feeling like no one was on my side.” — Anonymous
“Students often put their guard up because teachers can’t relate to the students. If teachers understood our backgrounds, they might know how to de-escalate situations better and make it easier for students.” — Chris
“The unequal treatment I see every day between different groups of students doesn’t make for a safe and supportive learning environment.” — Chinyere
“I think that the staff doesn’t represent the students culturally. If we’re the most diverse school in [town], why don’t my teachers look like me? Why don’t I feel represented? Especially the admin. You have kids of color being sent to the office and getting harsher consequences.”
— Focus Group Report
“When they suspend you, they don’t really help you get your grades up … when I was suspended, I didn’t get any work sent to me or anything like that.”
— Focus Group Report
“Sometimes there’s kids that are like mad, and you can tell when a kid’s mad and [the adult] will still be on them and on them and right when the kid pops off, they get suspended.”
— Focus Group Report
Student Priorities — Students Speak Advocacy Project
This website is dedicated to the valuable lessons we can learn from students’ own experiences about how to create better schools. Decisions about schooling are often made without listening deeply to students themselves. But students are in the best position to understand what they need in order to do well in school.
A collaboration of the Trauma and Learning Policy Initiative (TLPI), Harvard Law School and Massachusetts Advocates for Children (MAC). LEARN MORE