Parent contact. My school started this year with contacting parents from the first discipline referral. The administration always contacts the parent and we teachers try to make contact as well. We have found that the parents in our community want to be involved in their children's education and they definitely want to know about behavior issues. Parents are often the ones who have the power to take away what will actually influence the child (cell phone, TV privileges, car keys, nights out with friends, etc.) and have been a huge help. When the students know that their parents and teachers are in contact and are on the same page with expected behavior, our students have shown improved behavior.

I would suggest finding out what the student(s) like that can be given/ done in school and encourage positive behavior with that as a reward. I have found taking things away has had little effect compared to giving. I like to stick to more positive than negative when dealing with teaching and encouraging positive behaviors.

I think students that are older should receive consequences like lunch detention, receiving zeros for the class period or day, or referrals to the administration office. If students are in elementary school, then I would take away privileges, such as no fun Friday or treasure box.

One thing that I have recently been introduced to is to have the student commit acts of service around the school based on the rule that was broken. Studies have shown that when students, or even criminals, are required to provide an act of service for the school, or the community, has allowed the person to not only reflect on what they did wrong but decide to not do the act again. This is not full proof but there have been many people that this type of discipline has helped.

I think loss of privileges is an appropriate consequence. However, don't immediately bypass reflections. We need to continually support the emotional intelligence of our students through reflections and problem-solving.

Using writing as a punishment is not a great solution because students will later connect writing essays with being in trouble. Depending on the misbehavior, there are various consequences you can utilize. Instead maybe they will have detention, or a silent study hall period, or some sort of privilege taken away.

No, I don't think that reflections are a great way for students to have consequences, especially since for the most part they do not necessarily care about what they did. I think it is about getting to know your students, what they like to do and what motivates them during class and setting up a consequence system that way. In my class right now, some of my students will refuse to do their work and demand that they can go on the iPads at school which I do not let them use. Typically, this makes them upset In the beginning but they understand what they have to do to earn the iPad and they do their work and do it well because they know they will not get it if they didn't try and just scribbled answers. therefore it is just about getting to know your students and their interests, not about getting them to write a paper about what they did. As well, if need be you can send a note home or directly speak to the parent.

This sounds like an adequate first time offender consequence. If they repeat the same offense then it should be something more severe...like taking a desired activity away. Then if it happens again, something more severe, and so on.

Instead of eating lunch with everyone else, they can go to a quiet area and work on their reflections.