A Survey of School Discipline Gatekeepers about the Implementation of the Non-Exclusionary Discipline Practices Reform in Illinois Schools

Two years after the State of Illinois enacted an extensive non-exclusionary discipline reform in schools, 322 key discipline gatekeepers in schools were surveyed about the extent and impact of its implementation. The results showed that a number of core provisions of the reform had not been fully implemented or addressed through professional development. Creating re-entry plans for students with long suspensions, eliminating zero tolerance policies, and limiting disciplinary transfers to alternative schools were the least implemented provisions. Furthermore, contrary to principals’ wishful and embellished self-reporting, large proportions of school personnel still had not received required professional development in key topics such as adverse consequences of school exclusion and justice-system involvement, culturally responsive discipline, and developmentally appropriate disciplinary methods that promote positive and healthy school climate. Finally, sharp differences were found between principals and teachers and support personnel about the continuing prevalence and high frequency of discipline incidents, and about improvement in the overall school climate. If the reform is going to be impactful, it was recommended that more emphasis be placed on ensuring that teachers and support personnel receive adequate and timely professional development on the provisions of the policies.


Introduction
As a result of the so-called zero-tolerance policies of the 1980s through the first decade of the 21 st Century, exclusionary discipline punishments increased under the false premises that such practices would deter severe discipline infractions and protect non-offenders (Lacoe & Steinberg, 2018;Alnaim, 2018). However, rather than deterring discipline issues in schools, or even helping schools and students improve educational outcomes, zero tolerance reforms had quite opposite results (Ispa-Landa, 2018; Moreno & Scaletta, 2018;Ritter, 2018). According to researchers, no empirical research linked exclusionary discipline practices to deterring student indiscipline or improving the school climate (Ritter, 2018;Anderson, Ritter & Zamarro, 2019;Rodriguez Ruiz, 2017). Instead, consequences tended to perpetuate misbehaviors by disproportionately penalizing minority students, often for minor disciplinary infractions, incite recidivism, and alienate families and communities from involvement in school climate initiatives (Alnaim, 2018;DeMitchell & Hambacher, 2016;Green, Maynard & Stegenga, 2018;Moreno & Scaletta, 2018;Thompson, 2016). In fact, as Alaim (2018), Moreno and Scaletta (2018) and Rodriguez Ruiz (2017) challenged, zero tolerance policies failed to make school safer; they only pushed minority students and students with disabilities into prison systems. Research shows that the policies were counter-effective and could not guarantee the well-being and safety of students and educators (Alnaim, 2018, p. 5). Rodriguez Ruiz (2017) The decades of reliance on these punitive and harsh consequences, which are primarily comprised of extracting children from the classroom, have failed to create more consistency in punishments and have not served as effective deterrents either. Instead, research shows that these practices push students into our prison systems, strengthening the school-to-prison pipeline (p. 36).
Furthermore, decisions to use exclusionary discipline practices are based on office discipline referrals, which, as researchers (e.g., Smolkowski, Girvan, McIntosh, Nese., & Horner, 2016) point out, are disproportionately biased against racial minorities. The realization that exclusionary discipline practices were ineffective, coupled with implicit racial bias in excluding students, led state legislatures across the United States to pass extensive statewide discipline reforms in the second decade of the 21 st Century (Anderson, 2018;Fergus, 2018;Ispa-Landa, 2018;Moreno & Scaletta, 2018;Ritter, 2018;Steineberg & Lacoe, 2017). The intended focus of the reforms was to adopt and implement alternative discipline practices that would positively impact students (Anderson, 2018, p. 258). Among those disciplinary alternatives are restorative justice, social-emotional learning, and schoolwide positive behavioral supports, response to intervention, schoolwide positive behavioral interventions and supports, reconnecting youth, and safe and responsive schools (Ispa-Landa, 2018;Steineberg & Lacoe, 2017).
It is in this context that the State of Illinois enacted Public Act 99-0456 to implement alternatives to exclusionary discipline practices. The present study was conducted in 2019, two years after PA 99-0456 was enacted, and the practices were implemented statewide. Limited research, such as that conducted that conducted by Moreno and Scaletta (2018), has reviewed the perceptions of special and general education teachers in Illinois regarding alternatives to exclusionary discipline practices, and made recommendations for improving professional development. However, there still is little information about the extent to which all key gatekeepers-principals, teachers, counselors, and paraprofessionals-understand the policy's implications or what is expected of them. Such a comparative assessment is necessary, mostly because previous studies on exclusionary practices (e.g., Gahungu, 2018) have pointed to differences in perceptions between teachers and principals, with teachers having a more negative view of discipline than principals.
It is hoped that the results from this survey will help school districts and schools in their allocation of resources to effectively implement the policy. The provisions of the policy are crucial for its implementation, but as Anderson (2018) reported, schools do not always comply with policies, even when mandated by a state. Therefore, the extent to which those provisions are being adopted uniformly by all the school and districts, and understood by both administrators and non-administrators, is an issue that this study sought to examine. As Anderson (2018) reported, three factors appeared to have contributed to a lack of a positive impact of the State of Arkansas's policy limiting the use of out-of-school suspensions for truancy, namely, Insufficient communication to schools regarding the reasons for the change, and indication of how schools will be held accountable, and suggested alternatives to using out-of-school suspensions, A lack of accountability for adherence to the policy, and A lack of capacity or resources for schools to comply. (p. 258) Finally, researchers (e.g., Green, 2018;Mulcahy, 2019;Pont, 2014, Schechter & Shaked, 2017 discussed the central role principals play in facilitating reforms and ensuring that adopted practices reach the intended usersthe teachers and students in the classrooms and the community. In particular, Pont (2014) argues that it is school leaders who can take on the key role of bringing teachers to work and develop together rather than as isolated teachers within the walls of their classrooms (p. 12). However, researchers (e.g., Sanders, 2017;Schechter & Shaked, 2017) contend that there are times when principals choose to resist, rather than fully adopt reforms. Principals' resistance to fully implement reforms, particularly for policies and initiatives externally mandated may reflect the principals' good intentions to adjust the reforms to the readiness of their school communities and teachers. According to Schechter and Shaked (2017), When principals decided on partial rather than full implementation, they often did this as a result of their attempts to fit the reform program into their school's reality, so as to maintain a pleasant atmosphere among the teaching staff, and using their own judgment interchangeably. (p. 253).
Other researchers (e.g., Silva, Negreiros, & Albano, 2017;Wolff, Jarodzka, & Boshuizen, 2017) suggested that the fact that district and building-level leadership had adopted policies such as the school discipline reform in the State of Illinois (i.e., PA 99-0456) did not automatically translate into their full implementation in classrooms, or that their impact was known to the administration. According to Wolff, Jarodzka and Boshuizen (2017), when discipline problems arise, expert teachers may not relate them to inadequate or partial implementation of the reform, but rather attribute them to their own poor classroom management skills. Even more challenging for a study attempting to examine the extent of the implementation of a discipline reform, or assessing the reform's impact is that, at the classroom level, teachers do not communicate to the administrations all discipline problems they observe. As Wolff et al (2017) contend, while novice teachers may tell the administration all the misbehaviors that take place in their rooms, expert teachers do rarely communicate those problems to the administration, for pedagogical reasons. Attending to discipline problems is an integral part of teaching (Wolff et al, 2017). The authors argue, Classroom management can be considered fundamental to successful teaching and learning; it is intrinsically linked to both the content being taught and the pedagogical processes through which content is delivered (p. 296). This perspective may explain why only 3% of teachers in Silva, Negreiros and Albano's (2017) study share with the administration discipline problems that occur in their classrooms. It is in this context that the present study aimed to examine the state of the non-exclusionary school reform in the State of Illinois and its impact at the building and classroom levels. It also included the perceptions of other key gatekeepers-assistant principals, teachers, and school support personnel (counselor, psychologists, social workers, etc.).

Method
With the help from the Illinois Principals Association, a researcher-created survey questionnaire was sent via SurveyMonkey to Illinois teachers, principals, teachers and school support personnel during the months of June and July, 2019. This report is based on 322 valid responses, representing 241 teachers, 45 school support personnel, 19 principals, and 17 assistant principals. As a group, the majority of respondents reported that they worked in urban schools (89.1%), while 7.5% worked in a suburban school and 3.4% in a rural or small-town school. By gender, more respondents were female than male (82.2% vs. 27.8%). Crime levels in areas where their students lived were not very different. It was described as high (32.5%), moderate (34.4%), low (21.3%), and different levels (11.8%).

Extent of Implementation of the Provisions of PA 99-0456
Public Act 99-0456 has six key provisions-(1) eliminating zero-tolerance policies, (2) limiting suspensions longer than three days, (3) limiting expulsions, (4) limiting disciplinary transfers to alternative schools, (5) providing students the opportunity to complete missed work for full credit after a suspension, and (6) creating a re-entry plan when suspensions longer than four days are imposed. Respondents were asked to assess the extent to which those provisions were implemented. Table 1 summarizes the frequencies of the responses of respondents. Of the six provisions, the least implemented was creating a re-entry plan when suspensions longer than four days are imposed, which only 37.62% of respondents reported was fully implemented. Less than one third of teachers (32.77%) reported it was fully implemented, whereas 34.88% reported that the provision was either not implemented at all or was partially implemented. The group of principals was the only one whose majority (73.68%) reported creating a re-entry plan was fully implemented; all the other groups-teachers, school support personnel, assistant principals-had fewer than 50% report that the provision was fully implemented. The second least implemented provision was eliminating zero-tolerance policies, which was reported as being fully implemented by 56.29% of respondents. As was shown for creating a re-entry plan, more principals (78.95%) than other groups reported that eliminating zero-tolerance policies was fully implemented (vs. 58.82% assistant principals, 54.43% teachers, 55.56% support personnel). Furthermore, it appeared that more principals than other groups of respondents reported that all six provisions of PA 99-0456 were fully implemented, ranging from 94.74% for limiting expulsions to 73.68% for creating a re-entry plan. Differences between principals and other groups, particularly between principals and assistant principals and teachers, were the sharpest for creating a re-entry plan (73.68% vs. 47.06% assistant principals vs. 32.77% teachers), limiting transfers to alternative schools (78.95% vs. 52.94% assistant principals), and eliminating zero-tolerance policies (78.95% vs. 58.82% assistant principals vs. 54.43% teachers). These discrepancies will be analyzed further in other survey questions and interpreted in the conclusions.

Are Educators Receiving Ongoing Professional Development as Required by PA 99-0456?
PA 99-0456 requires that districts provide ongoing professional development to educators on key school discipline topics. The respondents were asked to assess their degree of satisfaction with the ongoing professional development (see Table 2). Overall, the level of satisfaction was low. Fewer than 1 in 7 educators were very satisfied with any of the topics. As summarized in Table 2, the highest frequency of very satisfied educators (13.98%) was on the topic of developmentally appropriate disciplinary methods that promote positive and healthy school climate. The topic of adverse consequences of school exclusion and justice-system involvement had the lowest percentage of very satisfied educators (9.69%). In the question, respondents were also asked to assess whether given topics had been addressed through professional development. As Table 2 shows, adverse consequences of school exclusion and justice-system involvement had the largest percentage of educators who reported that the topic has not been addressed through professional development (38.13%). In addition, 50.32% of respondents responded that it had either not been addressed in professional development or were very dissatisfied with it. As many as 21.1% of respondents reported that the topic of culturally responsive discipline had not been addressed in professional development, and 16.82% were very dissatisfied with it.
Differences among groups were sharp. For example, while no principal (0%) reported that the topic of developmentally appropriate disciplinary methods that promote positive and healthy school climate had not been addressed through professional development, 23.53% assistant principals and 20.33% teachers reported it had not. Similarly, while only 15.79% principals reported the topic of adverse consequences of school exclusion and justice-system involvement had not been addressed through professional development, as many as 29.41% assistant principals and 42.68% teachers and 26.67% support personnel reported it had not been addressed. The same was true for the topic of culturally responsive discipline which, although only 15.79% principals reported as not been addressed through professional development, while 24.58% teachers reported it was not.

Impact of PA 99-0456 on School Discipline
Several questions asked respondents about the occurrence of key discipline incidents and whether they perceived that those incidents had declined as a result of the implementation of non-exclusionary discipline practices. In Table 3 are summarized frequency percentages of respondents who reported that discipline incidents happened daily and that the same incidents had not declined since the implementation of nonexclusionary discipline practices. The group of principals reported that none of the categories of discipline incidents, except for student bullying and student verbal abuse of teachers happened daily, contradicting the other groups of respondents. Even for these discipline problems, only one or two principals reported that they were happening daily. By contrast, more than 40% of teachers reported that student verbal abuse of teachers and widespread disorder in the hallways happened daily, as did more than 34% or more of teachers for student bullying, widespread disorder in classrooms, and student acts of disrespect for teachers other than verbal abuse. The differences were not as large regarding perceptions of decline in discipline incidents as a result of the implementation of the reform. While the percentage of teachers (as high as 55%) reporting that there was no decline at all was much higher than that of other groups, the other groups did not deny the lack of decline either. Thus, between 31% and 44% of principals reported there was no decline at all, as did the other groups in similar proportions.
Respondents were also asked to assess the impact of the implementation of non-exclusionary discipline practices on other aspect of their school climate (Table 4). The responses were collapsed into two categories: (1) not at all + very little extent, and (2) great extent + very great extent. Of the seven areas in which nonexclusionary discipline practices were expected to have an impact, four garnered more than 60% of respondents who reported the areas had had no or very little impact-increase in student respect for staff (72.36%), increase in student respect for other students (70.81%), improvement in overall school climate (67.81%), and increase in academic achievement (62.73%). For principals, the least positive impact was in the area of increase in student respect for other students which 79% of them reported as having no or little extent, followed by increase in student achievement (73.68%). For teachers, the least impact was in two areas-increase in student respect for staff (75.52%) and increase in overall school climate (71.13%). Assistant principals and school service support staff's perceptions appeared to fall in the middle, exposing one sharper difference with principals.
Even more concerning is the perception, among teachers and school support personnel, that school is still not a safe place to work. As Table 5 shows, as many as 40.66% teachers reported that a student from their school had threatened to injure them, and 19.17% of them had been physically attacked by a student (vs. 0.0% principals). Whether these percentages reflect over-reporting on the part of teachers or under-reporting by principals is another example of sharp differences between the administration and other educators.

Discussion
The implementation of PA 99-0456 was signed into law in August 2015, and was rolled out statewide by September 2016. As such the reform is relatively new. Therefore, the main purpose of this survey is to gauge what provisions of the reform schools and school districts have prioritized and what preliminary outcomes have been achieved. It would have been unreasonable to expect all the provisions of the reform to be in place, or to anticipate tangible outcomes only two years after it was launched. However, not all provisions are equal; provisions such as eliminating zero-tolerance policies are at the heart of non-exclusionary discipline practices, and cannot be left behind without jeopardizing the reform. Along the same line, it seems important to question who the real gatekeeper of discipline is. Whose perceptions best inform collection of data on discipline practices, the people who work directly with students, or the administrators?

Policy Adoption and Implementation at the District and School Level vs. Implementation in the School and Community
For this report, it appears necessary to differentiate between non-exclusionary discipline practices as a state policy provisions for the principal to enforce, and the same practices tools at the disposal of the teachers and the administration to strengthen and repair harms to relationships between educators and students without excluding the students from the educational process. Therefore, the principal is accountable to the state for the extent and quality of the implementation, and as such, the reform would have fully implemented in at least 73% of participating schools. The only problem is that, if assistant principals and other educators are, in any way, similarly accountable for enforcing the policy within the school community, then, there is an apparent disconnect. Better communication channels must be established, and policy makers ought to evaluate why only 47% of assistant principals, only 44% of support personnel, and less than 1/3 of teachers reported that creating a re-entry plan when four days or more of suspensions are imposed were fully implemented. Equally sizable proportions of assistant principals, teachers and support personnel thought that the provisions of limiting disciplinary transfers to alternative schools or eliminating zero tolerance policies were not fully implemented. These three provisions being the core of the reform; failure on part of the state to focus its policy review and assessment on the apparent resistance to them and its own lack of accountability measures will jeopardize the purpose of the reform. The review and assessment ought to give a deep grounding in the philosophy of nonexclusionary discipline practices.

The Principals Know Best, or Do They?
The disconnect between principals and other educators in the implementation process is also evident in the enforcement of professional development as a provision of PA 99-0456. The personnel in charge of the policy adoption and implementation at the state and district level ought to be concerned that teachers reported that the following topics had not been addressed through professional development-adverse consequences of school exclusion and justice-system involvement (42.68%), culturally response disciple (24.58%), and developmentally appropriate disciplinary methods that promote positive and healthy school climate (20.33%). Once again, this disconnect may translate that adoption of policies at the main office level (i.e., principal's office) does not necessarily dictate the speed with which the end-users-teachers-will practice the prescribed practices, or even dictate the speed to which the principals will evaluate that the practices are being utilized in the classrooms.

Principals' Embellished and Wishful Reporting
Finally, similar to the literature reviewed, this survey has heightened a disconnect between principals and other educators. In reading principals' self-ratings, one would infer that the implementation of the non-exclusionary discipline practices had solved all discipline problems in schools, and had been implemented in almost all schools, with a few exceptions. The principals' responses also suggested that the reform had positively impacted discipline outcomes. Notably, all principals reported that no student acts of disrespect for teachers other than verbal abuse or physical conflicts or fighting among students happened daily, in sharp contrast to teachers' reporting to the contrary. However, even principals failed to support that the implementation of nonexclusionary discipline practices had resulted in positive outcomes for students, such as increase in student achievement or student respect for other students. This embellished reporting on part of the principals could only be viewed as wishful reporting or lack of connection to what is really going on in school hallways and classrooms. The principals do not know best; the teachers who manage harms to relationships in the classrooms, and school support personnel who have direct contacts with students can also gauge the extent of school safety and discipline. The latter's views count.

Is It Still a Discipline Incident if It Is Not on an Office Referral?
The discrepancy between principals and other educators regarding their assessment of discipline practices may lie in the use of the information collected. The principal, as the chief instructional leader, has the responsibility of reassuring the school stakeholders that she or he has everything under control that all required policy rules and regulations have been implemented and monitored. His or her reporting could, therefore, cause the school to be reprimanded or commended. As such, if disciplinary infractions or problems were thwarted or happened not to be recorded, the school would be spared. Most importantly, if parties to incidents solved their problems without submitting an official record, that also would spare the principal the pain of reporting them.
Teachers and other key gatekeepers-school counselors, social workers, etc.-by contrast, are the troops in the trenches. They probably will not report to the principal every single incident, because either that they solved, or can solve, it themselves, or found that they would be found incompetent to manage instructional situations in their care. Whether they choose to fill out an office referral or not ought not to mean that incidents did not occur; it reflects both their professional growth to manage those incidents as educators and their confidence in the administration to share the realities they live daily. Therefore, it seems that the teachers' perspectives would present a more accurate picture of the safety and climate prevailing in the schools. However, the discrepancy between teachers and principals may reveal a much deeper, unintended consequence of the reform than a simple dichotomy. The principals appear pressured to show the State and their districts that all provisions of the reform have been implemented. In their views, the lower the expulsions and suspensions, the better their schools are. By contrast, the teachers feel pressured by their principals and districts to practice non-exclusionary practices they do not believe in yet, and without much preparation. To resist the policy, they may over-report discipline problems as a way of telling their administrations to not rush. At the same time, the teachers might also keep the problems they face daily to themselves out of fear for appearing incompetent and receiving a lower rating from the principal. On either side, the true question becomes the extent to which the philosophy of non-exclusionary discipline practice has been absorbed before it the reform was set in motion.

Conclusions
The sample surveyed, particularly the group of principals, is relatively small. However, the information collected is relevant. It translates a dichotomous perspective regarding the use of self-reporting of discipline problems and practices. On one hand, the administration seemed to be on the defensive, presenting an embellished positive façade of their schools to the outside world. The teachers and other educators, on the other hand, appeared eager to expose the hardships a policy they did not understand was causing on them. However, beyond the differences in intentions between the principals and other educators, the survey showed that the implementation of the provisions of the school discipline reform, as well the subsequent non-exclusionary discipline practices in the State of Illinois, had not yet been fully implemented.
Most importantly, all groups of respondents, with teachers even more so than principals, thought that exclusionary discipline practices were still prevalent. In particular, limiting student transfers to alternative schools, eliminating zero-tolerance policies, and creating re-entry plans for cases of students with four or more days of suspension, were the least implemented. More concerning was that the recommendation of PA 99-0456 that schools and districts should provide professional development on pivotal topics about non-exclusionary discipline practices-adverse consequences of school exclusion and justice-system involvement, culturally responsive discipline, and developmentally appropriate disciplinary methods that promote positive and healthy school climate-still had not taken place in a number of schools. In addition, the respondents indicated that the reform had not improved safety and climate in schools, as the incidence and prevalence of discipline problems had not changed.
Finally, one must use caution in making sense of the implications from this study. What is causing the principals to embellish their assessments and the teachers and other educators to paint a darker picture of the state of the implementation of non-exclusionary discipline practices is evidence of a philosophy that is still being processed. The main concern that such embellished reporting on part of the principals will cause is that policy makers may be tricked into thinking that compliance was achieved, and not feel it necessary to honor, or support, requests and efforts from teachers and communities at the local level, including students and support personnel, to review and assess the reform. At the same time, heeding to poorly-informed voices of resisting teachers may cause the state to alter or derail a promising, but still untested philosophy. Ultimately, the implication of this survey for practice is that self-reports about the implementation of reforms from schools ought to be read with caution, unless the reader fully appreciates the intentions of the groups surveyed. Therefore, this study suggests that more emphasis in Illinois and other states be put on ensuring understanding of the law and its rationale, clarifying the concept of non-exclusionary discipline practices. Otherwise, forcing the policy onto principals, teachers and school service support personnel who have not fully bought into eat will only plunge the educational system in disarray.