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Student Code of Conduct

Jessica Quap

College of Education, Grand Canyon University

EAD 513-0503: Shaping a School Culture

Karla Carlson

November 30, 2020

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Student Code of Conduct Background

Slaton High School is a proud West Texas high school in the Slaton ISD school district

situated 18 miles east of Lubbock, Texas. The high school currently serves 390 students in

grades 9-12. As of Spring 2020, grade 9 served 108 students, grade 10 served 96 students, grade

11 served 96 students, and grade 12 served 90 students. Average graduation rate each year is

above 96% with 88% of students enrolling in a 2 or 4 year college or trade school. The campus

employs 60 teachers and staff and 3 administrators.

Student Code of Conduct Values Statement

At Slaton High School, our mission is to graduate students who can live a significant life

beyond our time with them, so in order to do that we, students and teachers, have developed a

mission and values statement to get us there. At Slaton High School, we steadfastly maintain a

focus on instructional academic goals, objectives and priorities that enable students to achieve

success in the classroom. We strive to provide an atmosphere conducive to learning where

success is measured for all students and rewarded for all goals. It is our true belief that all

students can grow and learn in order to become positive contributors to society.

In order to achieve this all students at Slaton High School are expected to:

● Demonstrate courtesy, even when others do not.

● Behave in a responsible manner, always exercising self-discipline.

● Attend all classes, regularly and on time.

● Prepare for each class; take appropriate materials and assignments to class.

● Obey all campus and classroom rules.

● Respect the rights and privileges of students, teachers, and other district staff and

volunteers.
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Student Code of Conduct Topics

The topics below represent the scope of general conduct violations that would result in a

discipline referral in which a parent or legal guardian would be contacted and other disciplinary

actions could be taken based on the number of violations and severity of the violation.

1. Disregard for Authority​- all students will respect the authority of all teachers, staff,

volunteers and all other district employees; students who fail to comply with directives

from district staff will be subject to disciplinary action

2. ​Mistreatment of Others- ​all students will refrain from the use of vulgar or profane

language or gestures, physically or verbally accost others, threaten others, engage in

bullying, sexual misconduct or harassment toward others, indecently expose private body

parts, haze, coerce an individual to do something, extort or blackmail others and/or

engage in inappropriate verbal, physical or sexual conduct directed toward another

person.

3. Property Offenses-​ all students will refrain from damaging or vandalizing the property

of others, damage or deface school property, steal from students, staff or the school,

and/or commit assault or robbery of items from others, including other students.

4. Possession of Prohibited Items- ​students shall not be allowed to possess on public

school grounds, in a school vehicle or at a school-sponsored activity any of the following

items: fireworks, razors of any kind, weapons (including “look-alike”), air or BB guns,

ammunition, knives or other instruments designed to cut or stab anyone, knuckles,

firearms, clubs, stun guns, mace or pepper spray, pocket knives, pornographic material,

tobacco products (including cigarettes, e-cigarettes, vape, dip, snuff), matches or a

lighter, laser pointers

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5. Illegal, Prescription, and Over-the-Counter Drugs- ​ students will not possess, use of

give any substance such as alcohol or illegal drugs, seeds or pieces of usable marijuanna,

drug paraphernalia, “look-alike” drugs, or own prescription or over-the-counter drugs

(without the consent and taking in front of the school nurse). Students shall not take any

of the above illegal substances or drugs that impair their ability to function in the school

setting as normal before coming to school each day.

6. Misuse of Technology and/or the Internet- ​students shall not deviate from rules,

policies and agreements signed by the student and parent regarding the use of district

technology resources this includes: attempting to hack or circumvent passwords or other

security measures in place, alter, destroy or otherwise render unusable any district

technology equipment, use the internet or district communication to threaten or harass

anyone including staff and other students, send, post or deliver messages via district

electronic technology that is abusive, obscene or sexually oriented that may threaten,

harass or damage another’s reputation and/or use the internet on district owned

technology devices or services to engage in any illegal activity.

7. Safety Violations- ​Students shall refrain from threatening school safety by the use of

electronic devices or materials, engage in threats to the safety of others, make false

accusations or make false claims/statements of threats to the safety of others, engage in

conduct that disrupts the educational environment, throw objects that are means to cause

harm or injury to others or property and/or discharge a fire extinguisher without cause.

8. Miscellaneous Violations- ​violating dress/grooming standards, cheat or copy off the

work of others, gamble in any way, falsify passes, records or school-related documents,
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engage in activities that interfere with the normal school day and/or violate any other

directive or campus code of conduct.

Student Code of Conduct Narrative

The development of this student code of conduct was modeled after the recommendations

used by the Texas Association of School Boards as all schools in the state of Texas are

encouraged to do. By doing so, I can ensure that any and all laws or regulations required to be

covered by the code of conduct are covered by our campus policy. I have taken the topics and

developed my own interpretation of those and utilized the code of conduct currently in place by

Slaton High School. Each year, I am on a committee that evaluates each section of the code of

conduct and adds/removes any regulations/laws needed. I also went through our current

discipline matrix to make sure that all areas on the matrix were identified in the code of conduct.

The code will ensure academic and social success if all priorities are kept and maintained.

In order to have this happen, all students and staff must be fully aware of the conduct standards,

adhere to them and accept responsibility for and change behavior when a violation occurs. In

order to promote integrity and fairness, all teachers and staff must see the campus as their

responsibility for holding accountable to the codes of conduct. All staff will be directed to

promptly identify a violation and follow the general disciplinary management plan in place to

notify the proper people and parents. An appropriate disciplinary action will be assigned

according to the disciplinary matrix.

To summarize Sprick and Knight’s article, “Involving Teachers in School-Wide

Discipline Policy”, one of the most stated reasons teachers leave their current school or even the

profession is lack of discipline in the school (2018). The article shares how teacher involvement

in development of the discipline plan will create more buy-in and follow-through when a
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disciplinary action is required (2018). I will work very hard to ensure that the time is taken

before the code of conduct is adopted each year to hold workshop meetings in which all teachers

have an opportunity to voice their ideas and solutions each year.

Social justice and equity are upheld in the policies that would have normally removed

students to be removed from the educational setting in response to the recent research showing

that doing so will limit a students academic performance when overused (Gregory & Fergus,

2017). Instead, I would utilize recent federal and state recommendations for social and emotional

learning based discipline practices. These can include restitution, behavior-intervention

counseling services, teacher training in recognizing the signs of potential behavior problems

before they occur and family services to support the school to home connection to promote

positive interactions. Recently, the Office of Civil Rights studied disciplinary actions of a sample

of schools and noted that the number of black students being disciplined was overwhelmingly

greater than that of other races and, at times, the disciplinary action assigned was more severe

than that same action of another student (Gregory & Fergus, 2017). In order to address this issue,

my campus will conduct weekly or bi-weekly disciplinary meetings to go over the week’s

disciplinary referrals in order to quickly track and disengage the actions along with students,

including their demographics and how their disciplinary action upheld the principles of social

and emotional learning.

 
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References

Gregory, A., & Fergus, E. (2017). Social and Emotional Learning and Equity in School

Discipline. Future of Children, 27(1), 117–136.

Sprick, R., & Knight, J. (2018). INVOLVING TEACHERS in Schoolwide Behavior Policy: For

your overall student behavior management strategy to work, give teachers a voice--and

some autonomy--in the process. Educational Leadership, 76(1), 48–53.