Manual addresses use of positive behavioral supports with tiered interventions to communicate and reinforce behavioral expectations and provide selective and intensive interventions, emphasizing the goal of reducing exclusionary discipline and ensuring equitable discipline practices.

A. A public school shall maintain an attendance policy that:

• (1) establishes an early warning system that includes evidence-based metrics to identify students at risk of chronic absenteeism or excessive absenteeism;
• (2) provides for early identification of chronically absent and excessively absent students;
• (3) employs an attendance improvement plan that focuses on:
• (a) keeping students in an educational setting;
• (b) prohibiting out-of-school suspension or expulsion as the punishment for absences;

A. Local school boards shall establish student discipline policies and shall file them with the department. The local school board shall involve parents, school personnel and students in the development of these policies, and public hearings shall be held during the formulation of these policies in the high school attendance areas within each school district or on a district-wide basis for those school districts that have no high school.

B. Each school district discipline policy shall establish rules of conduct governing areas of student and school activity, detail specific prohibited acts and activities and enumerate possible disciplinary sanctions, which sanctions may include in-school suspension, school service, suspension or expulsion. Corporal punishment shall be prohibited by each local school board and each governing body of a charter school.

C. An individual school within a school district may establish a school discipline policy, provided that parents, school personnel and students are involved in its development and a public hearing is held in the school prior to its adoption. If an individual school adopts a discipline policy in addition to the local school board’s school district discipline policy, it shall submit its policy to the local school board for approval.

D. No school employee who in good faith reports any known or suspected violation of the school discipline policy or in good faith attempts to enforce the policy shall be held liable for any civil damages as a result of such report or of the employee’s efforts to enforce any part of the policy.