Reducing Detentions and Suspensions through Enhanced Family Engagement 

Challenges  

• More than 300 after-school detentions and 100 suspensions in a school year 
• High frequency of repeated and extreme behaviors exhibited by students 
• Tedious, time-intensive, and ineffective paper-and-pencil-based process to communicate student behavior to families 

Solution  

• Unified Classroom® Behavior Support  

Results  

• Decrease in all areas of consequences the following school year—suspensions decreased by 81%, and detentions decreased by 23% 
• School positivity increased from 56% to 77% 
• Streamlined communication between teachers and families, and families and students have immediate access to student behavior data 

In the 2017-2018 school year, 363 after-school detentions and 113 suspensions were recorded at Riverside Intermediate School. Teachers and staff struggled through an inefficient process of sending paper-and-pencil behavior sheets home—papers were lost regularly.  

Riverside Intermediate School needed a way to consistently record student behavior, communicate with families, and increase family involvement in student behavior progress.  

Challenges 

The team at Riverside Intermediate School knew they needed to improve their supports for student behavior. 

The high number of detentions and suspensions reflected a schoolwide problem with student behavior. There was a high frequency of repeated and extreme undesirable student behavior, which led to more office referrals and more detentions and suspensions across the school. 

The staff’s first attempt to address these behaviors was to make phone calls home to parents and send home “behavior sheets” weekly. Students received these behavior sheets on half-slips of paper, and the expectations were that students would bring them home, get their parent’s signature, and return the signed slips to their teachers.  

Ryan Welch, Riverside Intermediate’s Assistant Principal, described this process as a “hassle” and explained that it took valuable time from teachers’ days and limited the impact the school could have on student behavior. 

Papers got lost regularly, requiring re-printing and extensive back-and-forth between families and teachers to communicate about student behavior effectively. 

Communication among teachers about student behavior during the school day was not easy either. When students switched classes to specials or interventions, teachers had to take time to communicate with one another about student behavior to give families a complete picture of their student’s day.  

For example, if something happened with a student in art class, the art teacher had to communicate that to the classroom teacher, who had to record that information and send it to families. 

Riverside Intermediate needed a way to record student behavior and communicate it to families consistently. They hoped that by streamlining communication, families could be more involved in their student’s behavior progress, which would decrease the number of detentions and suspensions schoolwide. 

Solutions 

Riverside Intermediate implemented PowerSchool Behavior Support to electronically store student behavior data in a centralized system and facilitate positive behavior incentive systems. Behavior Support’s Family Portal also provided an easy way to streamline communication between teachers and families. 

The core values at Riverside Intermediate are perseverance, respect, integrity, discipline, and empathy (pride). 

Students earn positive points in PowerSchool Behavior Support for showing these PRIDE values. Leadership dedicated each of the first five months of the school year to a specific value. The school social worker and teachers have lessons revolving around the focus value, including quotes and reminders in morning announcements and posted around the school. Teachers also have conversations with students about how they can put these character traits into action, and students work towards earning extra recess at the end of the month. 

Each homeroom at Riverside Intermediate nominates one outstanding student who has shown that month’s focus core value. Leadership recognizes students at quarterly Spirit Assemblies. Students can earn points in Behavior Support for attendance and other target behaviors. These points contribute to incentive systems for students. 

Since students receive rewards in PowerSchool Behavior Support for showing PRIDE values, families can log into Behavior Support’s Family Portal and see the points their students are earning. Parents can see this data in real-time without teachers having to call home each time a student exhibits a core value or misbehaves. This accessibility empowers families to have proactive conversations with their students about their behavior without relying on the teacher to communicate this information. 

Students can also log onto Behavior Support during the day to see their behavior data and progress toward different incentives. Having this access makes students more invested in their behavior development. 

Results 

After implementing Unified Classroom® Behavior Support and creating streamlined communication between families and teachers, behavior improved across the school. 

The percent of positive interactions increased from 56% to 77%.  

Riverside Intermediate decreased office referrals for repetitive or extreme behaviors and attributed that change to having PowerSchool Behavior Support. Since students could see their daily behavior data and had incentives tied to Behavior Support, they became more invested and were motivated to stay in good standing. 

With PowerSchool Behavior Support’s Family Portal, families and students can immediately access student behavior data. Teachers do not have to rely on students to bring home paper behavior slips to parents and return them to school. Families can access behavior data directly and see not only the specific behaviors that teachers recorded for the student but also which class they happened in and which staff member recorded them. The parents then have a clear, more complete understanding of their student’s day.  

By implementing Behavior Support across the whole school, there was more consistency and transparent communication from each teacher. 

Instead of complicated exchanges of information, each teacher records student behavior data in the moment and can see what has been recorded by other teachers for shared students. This timely process cuts down on time spent communicating among teachers and results in a more accurate account of students’ behavior at each point in the day.  

The PowerSchool Behavior Support platform provides students, families, and teachers a place for open and accessible communication about student behaviors. Kyle Coffman, Riverside Intermediate’s principal, explained that “using PowerSchool Behavior Support has helped connect families with what is going on in the classroom with real-time access to behavior information.”  

In the first semester of the 2018-2019 school year, after the school implemented and adopted PowerSchool Behavior Support, there was not a single supervised suspension, compared to 12 the previous school year.  

First semester detentions decreased by almost 30% from the previous year, dropping from 249 to 178. In-school suspensions were cut in half from the first semester of 2017-2018 to the first semester of 2018-2019. Welch explained, “now that parents have access, culture has improved.”  

Once the 2018-2019 school year was over, Welch looked at the data for the entire school year and again saw a decrease in all areas of consequences. Supervised suspensions were down by 81% from the 2017-2018 school year, and in-school suspensions had also decreased. The number of after-school detentions also significantly dropped, from 363 in 2017-2018 to 280 in 2018-2019.  

Coffman reiterated the impact, saying that “enhancing our family communications with the help of PowerSchool Behavior Support has been one of the major reasons for reducing detentions and suspensions schoolwide.”  

By implementing Behavior Support and using the Family Portal to streamline communication between teachers and families, student behavior has significantly improved at Riverside Intermediate.