Reframing Misbehavior: Positive School Discipline and the New Meaning of 'Safety' in Schools

Since 2011, the federal government has become increasingly interested in stemming the disproportionate suspension of students of color (as well as the overall spike in suspensions and expulsions nationwide). The Supportive School Discipline Initiative, a joint venture launched in January of 2014 by the Department of Education (ED) and the Department of Justice (DOJ), published a set of documents titled the Climate Guidance Package. The Initiative’s website frames this package as a means of support for school districts. This frame neglects to acknowledge that while racial disproportionality in discipline has been a phenomenon since school desegregation, federal law mandated zero-tolerance policies (Anfinson et al. Int J School Disaffect 7(2):5–20, 2010) and funneled money into police presence in schools that has not as yet been reallocated to preventative programs (Losen et al. The school to prison pipeline. NYU Press, New York, 2013). This chapter is a Critical Discourse Analysis of the Supportive School Discipline Initiative, a set of policy documents released to school leaders to encourage school-discipline reform. These documents discursively position school leaders and teachers as entirely responsible for the harmful effects of harsh disciplinary policies like zero tolerance, when in fact these policies were a federal response to violence in schools and hundreds of thousands of dollars are still being funneled into paying school safety officers. This allows governments and districts to punish schools for not reducing their school suspension rates without providing adequate funds to implement alternatives.