Teachers Want More Support. Many Principals Want to Provide It.

By John Huber, Marylandk12.com

A recent Education Week article asked teachers what principals could do to better protect them from aggressive student behavior and increasingly confrontational parents. The answers were not surprising. Teachers want administrators to respond quickly when serious incidents occur, and they want disruptive students removed from classrooms when learning becomes impossible. They want consequences to be meaningful and consistently applied. Most importantly, they want to know that when a situation escalates, someone is standing behind them rather than asking them to continue dealing with behavior that would be unacceptable in almost any other workplace.

What struck me as I read through the article, however, was the underlying assumption that principals simply need to make different choices and start doing these things.  Much of the discussion seemed to suggest that if school leaders would just step up, become more assertive, or take a stronger position, many of these problems would disappear. Having spent years working in schools and observing how discipline decisions are actually made, I think that view misses an important reality. In many cases, principals are every bit as frustrated as teachers. The difference is that principals are often operating inside a system that limits what they can actually do.

When teachers see a student return to class after a serious disciplinary incident, it is easy to assume the principal chose that outcome. From the classroom perspective, it certainly looks that way. A teacher sends a student to the office after a significant disruption, a threat, or even an act of aggression, only to see that student back in class the next day. Understandably, many educators interpret that as a lack of support. What they often do not see are the layers of policy, regulation, legal requirements, and central office expectations surrounding the decision.

The reality is that the modern principal operates in a dramatically different environment than administrators did twenty or thirty years ago. Today’s disciplinary decisions do not occur in a vacuum. State laws, district regulations, equity initiatives, due process requirements, federal mandates, and extensive documentation procedures all influence what schools can and cannot do. Every suspension becomes a data point. Every removal from class creates paperwork. Every consequence triggers additional reviews, meetings, appeals, or legal considerations. By the time a principal reaches a decision, that decision has been shaped by factors that extend well beyond the school building.

Maryland provides a good example of this reality. Over the past decade, policymakers have devoted significant attention to reducing suspensions and other forms of exclusionary discipline. The intentions behind those efforts are understandable. Nobody wants students pushed out of school unnecessarily, and nobody wants disciplinary systems that produce inequitable outcomes. Unfortunately, there is a significant difference between establishing a policy goal and managing the practical consequences inside an actual school.

The result has been an environment where principals are frequently asked to accomplish multiple goals that do not always align with one another. They are expected to keep teachers safe, maintain orderly classrooms, reduce suspensions, improve attendance, address behavioral concerns, support struggling students, satisfy parents, comply with special education law, and meet various accountability measures. When those objectives come into conflict, administrators are left navigating difficult decisions with fewer options than most people realize.

The situation becomes even more complex when special education is a factor. Anyone who has spent time in school leadership understands that many serious behavioral cases involve students who qualify for services under federal special education law. Once that happens, disciplinary decisions become intertwined with manifestation determinations, behavior intervention plans, functional behavioral assessments, least restrictive environment requirements, and a host of other legal protections. These safeguards exist for important reasons, but they also mean that what appears to be a straightforward discipline issue from the classroom can quickly become a complicated legal matter for the administrative team.

That complexity is usually invisible to teachers.

A teacher sees a student who assaulted a staff member, threatened classmates, or repeatedly disrupted instruction. The principal may see the same student while considering legal protections, district policy, parent appeals, compliance requirements, and the likelihood that any disciplinary action could be overturned by the next level of review. Neither perspective is wrong. Both individuals are simply looking at different parts of the same problem.

If teachers in Maryland feel that student discipline is weak and that administrators are not supportive, I would encourage them to examine the discipline philosophy established by the State of Maryland. Maryland’s current discipline regulations require local school systems to adopt policies that reflect a philosophy of “fostering, teaching, and acknowledging positive behavior,” keeping students connected to school, and treating long-term suspension and expulsion as “last-resort options.”

Maryland regulations also specifically define and incorporate restorative practices as a means of resolving conflict, repairing harm, promoting individual accountability, and improving school climate.

This is not simply a matter of individual principals choosing to be lenient. It is the framework within which Maryland principals are expected to make disciplinary decisions. The state’s own Maryland Guidelines for a State Code of Discipline call for prevention, intervention, restorative, and incentive-based strategies and direct schools toward progressively more intensive consequences. The result is a system in which the principal is expected to maintain order and safety while staying within a statewide philosophy that emphasizes intervention, restoration, and keeping students in school.

Teachers may interpret the return of a disruptive or aggressive student to their classroom as evidence that the principal failed to act. Sometimes that may be true. But in Maryland, there is another possibility: the principal may be implementing the discipline philosophy that the state itself has established.