Lying?

1. Littering? Cell Phones? Minor Or Major Profanity? Cheating? Lying? Loitering? Gum Chewing?

2. Disclaimers and Caveats • Many teachers editorialized when completing the T-charts; responses that could not be easily interpreted were not counted. • Items that a teacher wrote in both column were not counted for either column. • A teacher that just wrote “NHIs” or “Tardies” in the “minor” column counted for both single and multiple offenses. • Items were counted towards the column in which they were written, even if mitigating comments were included. • “Talking Back to Teacher” written in “Minor” column with addition of “unless part of a pattern of disrespect”.

3. What do we ALL agree on? • 100% of the staff believe that a minor infraction is: • Gum Chewing (1x) • 1 NHI • 1 Tardy • Littering . . . After that, it gets a bit more complicated.

4. What does Benton consider “minor”? MINOR MAJOR

5. What does Benton consider “major”? MINOR MAJOR

6. Dig a little deeper • Data was broken down based on three categories: • By Department • By Gender • By Years of Service • Each perspective of the data offers interesting insight into why certain people and groups of people act the way they do.

7. Inter-department Harmony? • Departments for our purposes are: • Social Studies • Math • Language Arts • Science • PE/Music • Art/FACS • Special Ed. • Signet/Library/FL/ESOL • Admin/Guidance • Each department disagreed with the school as a whole on one topic, except Math and Language Arts, who matched the overall staff perfectly, and Admin/Guidance, who disagreed with the aggregate on two counts.

8. Inter-department Harmony? • As a whole, school believes Profane/Obscene Language is Major – 57% to 43%. • Admin tallied 67% (4 of 6) in favor of Obscene/Profane Language being Minor • PE/Music and SIG/LIB/FL also thought this was minor • As a whole, school believes 3 tardies is Major – 57% to 43% • Admin tallied 80% (8 of 10) in favor of 3 tardies being Minor. • Social Studies also thought this was minor.

9. Gender Gap? • When examining the staff categorized by gender, the differences become even smaller. • The only disagreement is with Profane/Obscene Language • Staff said Profanity was Major – 57% majority • Males said profanity was Minor – 53% majority

10. Gender Gap? • However, the results for both Cheating and Excessive Talking in Class are intriguing.

11. A Generation Gap? • Benton staff was broken down into three categories based on years of teaching experience: • New (40% of staff) = 0 to 9 years experience • Experienced (35% of staff) = 10 to 19 years experience • Veteran (25% of staff) = 20 years experience and higher

12. A Generation Gap? • Profane/Obscene Language • New and Experienced teachers are less likely to tolerate than Veteran teachers.

13. A Generation Gap? • Minor Physical Altercation • New and Experienced teachers are less likely to tolerate Minor Physical Altercations than Veteran teachers.

14. On Average . . . • Benton Males consider 5.1 items to be major infractions. • Benton Females consider 5.6 items to be major infractions.

15. On Average . . . By Department, Average # of infractions considered to be major SIGNET/Library = 7.0 Social Studies = 6.1 Special Ed = 5.9 Math = 5.75 Language Arts = 5.6 FACS/Art = 5.6 Science = 4.9 Admin/Office = 4.2 PE/Music = 4.0

16. What does it all mean? • These results at least partially explain why frustration and tension might exist between teaching staff and administration. • Both groups can behave in a manner true to their beliefs, creating a conflict in how discipline is handled. • How do we mitigate that conflict? • How do we resolve these differences? • How do we provide consistent expectations for students to understand?