Well-Being of School Community: Perspectives on Student Behavior Challenges

School leaders discussed how they perceive and respond to behavior challenges. Key discussion topics included understanding the social and emotional factors and having protocols in place for when behavioral challenges arise.

  • “What would happen if we looked at a student’s off-task behavior through a different lens? How would our response differ if we focused on the emotion that is driving the behavior instead of just the presenting behavior?” —Former Principal in Missouri
    • “Behavior is only truly behavior in 5% of the cases, behavior 95% of the time is due to either academic deficiency or emotional reasons, find the cause, eliminate the behaviors!” —Principal in New Jersey
    • “A question I learned to ask a student ‘in trouble’ sitting in my office, ‘What did you want to have happen?’  by whatever the student said or did? This often led to a very productive conversation.” —Former School Leader in Arizona
  • “How do you decide when to refer a student behavior issue to administrators? Does your school make a guide or flowchart available? Please share an image or Google Drive link below if you have one. Many thanks.” —Elementary Vice Principal in British Columbia
    • “As an admin, I ask them to do all they can to keep the kids in the classroom. When they can’t, send to me.  I also tell them disrespect & insubordination are immediate tickets to the office.” —Administrator in Missouri 
  • “Some of y’all schools are so hung up using think sheets, safe seats and buddy rooms because they haven’t learned to include mental health professionals in behavior protocol discussions. As well as school leaders don’t understand how to make RTI work for social-emotional skills.” —School Counselor in Missouri 
  • “Visualize school through the eyes of a student. ‘I know I used to skip a lot. Every time I did go to class, the teacher would make fun of me being there, so I just cussed her out and left.’ This is a quote from a student describing why they had so many behavior referrals.” —Administrator in Kentucky