This guidance has led many districts to reduce their use of suspensions and expulsion and implement alternative discipline approaches.
Third, many teachers valued positive discipline and alternative discipline methods, including peer-to-peer discipline, as important pathways to reduced use of violence.
Much of the success of the Toolkit derives from the support it provides for fostering better student-teacher relationships and alternative discipline options.
The dominant political party, Fianna Fail, has been plagued with scandals, and Sinn Fein has stepped forward to present itself as the virtuous alternative: disciplined, incorruptible, almost virginal -- in politics, at least.
Since then, the need for an alternative discipline has become more urgent: Last year, the district faced a Department of Education civil rights investigation into high suspension and expulsion rates, particularly among African-American boys.
Patricia Leigh Brown and Jim Wilson document an alternative discipline program in Oakland, Calif., called restorative justice that helps students learn from crises and defuse conflicts in the article "Opening Up, Students Transform a Vicious Circle" and the related slide show "Defusing Conflict in Schools".
As some of the schools and districts we visited have begun implementing alternative discipline models and efforts to reduce the use of exclusionary discipline in recent years, we heard from officials in two districts that there has been difficulty with implementation due to limited resources, staffing turnover, and resistance on the part of some parents.
For example, officials in all school districts said that they are implementing alternative discipline models that emphasize preventing challenging student behavior and focus on supporting individuals and the school community, such as positive behavioral interventions and supports (PBIS), restorative justice practices, and social emotional learning (SEL).
District policies discouraging suspensions, shortening their length, and encouraging alternative discipline approaches such as restorative justice have mixed effects.
From this point of view, the philosophy of film is redundant, occupying a space that has already been carved out by an alternative discipline.
