Code of Student Conduct (CSC) Tutorial

1. Code of Student Conduct (CSC) Tutorial Lesson 4 Adopting and Implementing Your CSC –The Rewards of Long-Term Investment This tutorial has been prepared for the NJ Department of Education by CSCD@RU,and was supported in whole by a U.S. Department of Education Partnerships in Character Education Program grant.

2. Adopting and Implementing Your CSC –The Rewards of Long-Term Investment The three pilot districts found that the benefits of the CSC project included: • An enriched dialogue with students, parents, community members, staff and administrators regarding educational goals, issues and behaviors that needed to be addressed. • A structure for examining conduct data from different sources and discussing implications of the data for program changes and professional development. • Greater level of “buy-in” from the community and staff for suggested remediation plans and/or renewed programmatic efforts to support positive student social development.

3. Adopting and Updating Your CSC: The Power of Public Approval and Commitment The Student Conduct regulations establish an annual cycle for renewal of the CSC that should work approximately like this: • Dissemination of the CSC to school staff, students and parents – Late summer. • Program implementation and data collection – School year. • Review of the CSC by staff and the school community in light of the data – Late spring to early fall. • Recommendations to the chief school administrator and board committee – Summer to early fall. • Report and action Item for the board of education at a public meeting – October.

4. Adopting and Updating Your CSC: The Power of Public Approval and Commitment Annual review process The purpose of the required process for the annual review of the CSC is to engage the school community in a thoughtful consideration of how the existing programs and procedures are functioning to support student learning and positive social development, consistent with the district’s adopted core ethical values.

5. Adopting and Updating Your CSC: The Power of Public Approval and Commitment Annual review process (cont’d) It is an opportunity to: • Openly review with students, parents and the community the available data from the required sources (N.J.A.C. 6A:16-7.1(a)3ii); • Provide information regarding the implementation of curricular and student services programs and activities that support pro-social development; and 3) Provide for the review of evidence of effectiveness of current programs and procedures that will result in sound recommendations to the chief school administrator for the required annual report to the board of education and NJ Department of Education N.J.A.C. 6A:16-7.1(a) 5. and 6.

6. Leadership and Involvement: Developing Champions to Lead the Way Here is how the Cherry Hill School District Administrative team talks about their approach to involving all of the members of the leadership structure of their school system.

7. Leadership and Involvement: Developing Champions to Lead the Way The following are guidelines for involving leadership in the CSC development process: • The formal and informal leaders in the faculty should participate at key points, such as when: • The core ethical values are determined; • The core values are defined behaviorally; • Expectations for adult behavior are developed; and • Roles and responsibilities for staff members are determined (required by N.J.A.C. 6A:16-7.7(b)).

8. Leadership and Involvement: Developing Champions to Lead the Way Guidelines for leadership involvement (cont’d): • Pre-school, elementary, middle and high school leaders have different issues regarding setting norms for behavior, and their students are at different stages in their moral development. They should meet together to discuss the implications of and variation for behavior rules, supports and sanctions. • The CSC regulations require that all employees be trained annually on the CSC, which can be another avenue for exercising distributive leadership (N.J.A.C. 6A:16-7.7 (c)).

9. Leadership and Involvement: Developing Champions to Lead the Way Guidelines for leadership involvement (cont’d): • Principals should be involved in decisions about when and how dissemination of the CSC approved by the board of education will occur. Issues that are likely to arise include: • Are there languages other than English that should be used in communicating with students and parents? • Is there a consistent structure for student handbooks? • How will the structure and content of student handbooks differ across pre-school, elementary and secondary schools? • Is there information that is not in the student handbooks that should be made available to parents and the public for compliance with the CSC regulations? If so, how will it be disseminated or made available?

10. Program Development: Using the CSC to Foster Positive Student Behavior The general purpose of Chapter 16 regulations addresses steps necessary to assure the health and safety of children, such as required health services and procedures for the intervention of student alcohol and other drug abuse. Within this context, the first stated purpose of the CSC regulations is to foster positive student development. The pilot districts found that the process for the revision of the CSC provided a perfect opportunity to review current social-emotional and character development programs and services that were already designed to foster healthy student development.

11. Program Development: Using the CSC to Foster Positive Student Behavior The regulations (N.J.A.C. 6A:16-7.1(a)) require that part of the CSA’s annual report to the board of education on implementing the CSC must include specific information on student conduct. For example, the Cherry Hill School District presented the following information as part of its presentation to its school board: • School responses to the enumerated violations of the student behavioral expectations; • Evidence of the effectiveness of implementation of the CSC; and • Proposed changes to the current policies and programs. Cherry Hill presented the process and plan for the CSC project as the strategy for addressing policy and program changes.

12. Program Development: Using the CSC to Foster Positive Student Behavior Here is how the Montvale school district portrays the way they used the development of their CSC to guide program development: Here are examples of how Montvale executed its plan to use selected parts of its social skills development program to provide support for its newly adopted CSC. They organized a kick-off at the beginning of the school year that involved communications and support materials for parents, teachers and students, and started the year with an assembly where students role-played the social skills of be your BEST (Body posture, Eye contact, Speech, Tone of voice).

13. Program Development: Using the CSC to Foster Positive Student Behavior Intervention programs are also important for creating a culture for addressing the inevitable problems some students have in meeting behavioral expectations. Here is how the Highland Park School District describes the part an early intervention program, the Social Decision-Making Lab, plays in creating an operational CSC.

14. In Closing Having a way to represent the integration of core ethical values, conduct code and program supports to the school community is an important culminating activity. Here are two different approaches pilot districts used. Cherry Hill uses a graphic representation of their Civic Habits of the Heart. Highland Park has created a brochure on Social Emotional and Character Development which provides an overview of the program and shows how specific social skills are aligned with the identified core ethical values. For more information and resources please visit http://www.state.nj.us/education/students/safety/behavior/codes/. To review additional resources developed by the three pilot project school districts, please go to: http://www.rucharacter.org/CurrentProjects/ and view “Code of Student Code of Conduct Training Resources.”