Why Ad Hoc, Unpredictable Consequences Are a Bad Idea

let's talk about predictability in school discipline i think one of the strengths of traditional approaches to progressive discipline which have been in place for you know our entire lifetime certainly is that they're predictable right if you have a discipline matrix if you have a progressive series of consequences and steps that are taken based on repeated behavior or increased severity of behavior it's predictable to everyone And the downside of predictability is that it feels a little bit inevitable for bad things to happen for kids who are on a bad path.

It feels like we want to be able to disrupt a pattern that is occurring.

And of course, we should do everything in our power to disrupt that pattern.

But the one thing that does not work to disrupt the pattern is to withhold the consequences and say, well...

Yes, this is the consequence that our discipline matrix specifies.

This is what our policy is.

But we feel bad for this kid.

So we're going to withhold the consequence and hope that that makes a difference.

And there's just no evidence that that is something that actually makes a difference.

I think there are lots of things we can do to provide support, to provide intervention.

to show that we care about a student who's not on a great path, but withholding consequences just has absolutely no evidence behind it.

There's no reason we should think that that will make a difference, and there's every reason to think that that will reinforce the very behaviors that we want to see less of and encourage other people to imitate them.

So I think predictability is really important for the student who is struggling with their behavior to know, if you do X, here's what is going to happen.

you know if you hurt somebody here's what is going to happen if you assault a teacher or cuss out a teacher or whatever here's what's going to happen and i don't think those consequences need to be excessive but they do need to be predictable and they need to be predictable for everyone else as well because one of the biggest uh consequences of removing consequences or not using the consequences that we say we're going to, is that everybody starts to get the sense that it's a good idea to test the limits and say, well, you said we're not allowed to do this.

What if I do?

I'm just going to take my chances on that.

And we see a lot of kind of contagious bad behavior.

The other party who needs predictability is, of course, staff.

When staff sign up for a job, they need to know, they deserve to know that they're going to be protected from unsafe behavior, that they're going to have a work environment where they can actually do their job and not just put out fires all day.

So I think we owe everyone that predictability.

We owe that predictability to parents and communicating with them about what the expectations are, what the consequences are going to be.

And when we don't have predictability, we get a couple of different things.

We get turnover in staff.

We get lawsuits from parents.

We get violence from students.

And all of that is largely preventable if we will just...

stick to the predictable progressive discipline consequences that we have in policy already.

So let me know what's happening in your school.

Are you hearing that we're making kind of an ad hoc decision about every individual student?

We're not following any kind of predictable discipline plan.

Let me know what you're hearing in your school.