Office Referrals Research Articles

Snap Judgements: Vulnerable Decision Points and Subjective Discipline Incident Referrals for Latinx Students

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to investigate the amount and distribution of subjective discipline incident (SDI) office referrals across a four-year time period in a large school district in the U.S. Pacific Northwest. Descriptive and inferential analyses applied to district SDI data revealed that Latinx students were underrepresented in SDI referrals in elementary school but overrepresented in middle and high school. Results also indicated that the disproportionality in SDI referrals varied throughout the academic year, with the relative risk of an SDI office referral for Latinx students peaking during the Spring standardized testing window. These results suggest that stressors in the contextual environment have the potential to interact with the predispositions of school personnel over the course of the academic year, increasing the risk of an SDI referral for Latinx students. Implications for school policy and practice and discussed.

Pediatric dermatology eConsultation: Insights to reduce barriers to utilization and increase access to care.

Provider-to-provider outpatient pediatric dermatology eConsultation services increase access to care, but barriers exist that may prevent eConsult implementation and survival. We deployed cross-sectional surveys to referring pediatric primary care physicians and consulting pediatric dermatologists participating in our eConsult program to identify barriers to utilization and sustainability. Our data suggest that eConsultation increases access to care and offers iterative educational opportunities for primary care providers, which may ultimately reduce office referrals for common outpatient skin issues. Sustainability of eConsult services requires simple order templates, clear representative photos, concise submission reports, and provider reimbursement.

Beyond the discipline gap: the role of spectacular state violence in the discipline and punishment of Black and Indigenous children in US public schools

ABSTRACT Education research frequently measures and calls for an end to racial disparities in rates of US school discipline practices such as office referrals, suspension, and expulsion. This paper asks what a more expansive understanding of discipline can demonstrate about how schools discipline different students differently. Tracing the history of corporal punishment from Native boarding schools, through Ingraham v. Wright, to violent school policing and arrests today, the author finds that, because Black and Indigenous children can never be ‘normalized’ within white supremacist US schooling, the shift in disciplinary tactics that Foucault described never took place for these students and in fact, the functioning of normalizing school discipline for all depends on extraordinary, spectacular violence against the most marginalized. Rather than focusing on the discipline gap, education research must attend to the violence inherent in US schooling and seek to abolish it.

Effectiveness of School Violence Prevention Programs in Elementary Schools in the United States: A Systematic Review

School violence remains a major concern for scholars, policymakers, and the public in the United States. Despite the implementation of various school violence prevention programs, information regarding their effectiveness in the United States is outdated and limited. This systematic review identified current elementary school programs that effectively reduce school violence in the United States and determined the types of elementary school violence prevention programs implemented, their effectiveness, and the types of tools used to enhance such programs. A qualitative methodological approach was employed, and four databases were searched. English articles published between 2012 and 2023 were selected. Furthermore, data involving elementary school education, school personnel, teachers, and children (5–12-year-old) in the United States were included in the thematic analysis. Results confirmed that the school-wide Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports program effectively decreases violence, suspensions, office referrals, and disruptive behaviors, whereas positive action effectively reduces negative violent behaviors. Social–emotional learning (SEL) implementation also reduced behavioral issues. The findings of this study are relevant for guiding teachers, school administrators, policymakers, teacher education preparation programs, and health professionals in constructing evidence-based violence prevention programs with an added SEL component for elementary schools.

School Climate, Teacher Characteristics, and School Discipline: Evidence From New York City

School discipline is a salient problem of educational policy and practice. Teachers play an important role in the production and disruption of racial inequities in school discipline, yet there remains a need to disentangle the relationship between teacher characteristics, their perceptions of school climate, and school discipline patterns. This study uses longitudinal data representing over one thousand public middle and high schools in New York City and linear regression methods to examine the relationship between teachers’ perceptions of school climate, teacher characteristics, and the rates of and disparities in suspensions. Overall, results indicate more positive teacher perceptions of school climate, higher years of teaching experience, and a greater share of Black teachers are independently associated with lower rates of office referrals and suspensions, overall and especially for Black and Latinx students. The study concludes by discussing implications for teacher education and on-the-job support as well as school leadership.

Restorative justice and dynamic chronologies in disciplinary referrals in an urban middle school

ABSTRACT School referrals are a key initial step in the school-to-prison pipeline, both via direct referral to law enforcement and through accumulated mechanism of control upon students. However, few studies have examined the chronological trajectory of referral usage within a school year. This study investigated whether the assignment of school disciplinary referrals varies over time over a typical school year, and whether that variation differed based on student demographic characteristics. Using longitudinal data from a medium-sized urban middle school in the eastern United States, the study found a statistically significant quadratic relationship between office referrals and time among students of color specifically. However, no such relationship could be observed for White students, for whom referrals were subject to little variation over the course of a school year. Finally, evidence was found that racial disparities in referrals were also subject to a quadratic trajectory as the year progressed. These findings demonstrate the need for deeper investigation into racialized variation in how office referrals are administered over time.

Demographic predictors of disciplinary sanctions among middle school victims of bullying: a quantitative correlation study

ABSTRACTBullying victimization is a very common, complex, and potentially damaging form of violence among children and adolescents. Bullying is defined as unwanted, aggressive behavior, which involves a real or perceived social power imbalance. One in 10 public schools reports at least one case of serious violent crime, such as aggressive bullying, cyberbullying, rape, robbery, fights involving weapons, and suicide each year. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects bullying victimization has on students’ school disciplinary sanctions (suspensions, office referrals, and expulsions) by examining a national data set that consisted of 13,965 students. This study used a correlation design. The independent predictor variables used to examine bullying victimization among middle school students in this national data set were age, race, gender socioeconomic status (SES), and physical and emotional bullying victimization. The dependent criterion variable was disciplinary sanctions. The study results indicated that race, gender, age, and socioeconomic status collectively predict middle school students’ disciplinary sanctions (suspensions, office referrals, and expulsions) among those who have experienced emotional and physical bullying victimization on a national level. Policymakers may use the study results to implement strategies that may be used to reduce physical bullying in learning institutions.

Classroom Disruptiveness and Racial, Ethnic, and Gender Disparities in Office Discipline Referrals

ABSTRACT Prior research has shown that Black and Hispanic students are more likely to experience office discipline referrals than White youth, and the magnitude of these inequalities has been found to vary by gender. However, it remains unclear whether racial/ethnic and gender disparities in office referrals might be amplified among students in more disruptive classroom environments. Analyses of data from the 2012–2021 8th/10th grade cohorts of the Monitoring the Future survey (N = 70,442) reveal that, among male youth, Black- and Hispanic-White differences in office referrals are substantially weaker for students who describe their classrooms as more disruptive. In contrast, the heightened risk of an office referral for minority female students relative to White females increases in correspondence with higher levels of classroom disruptiveness.

Who refers whom? The effects of teacher characteristics on disciplinary office referrals

Teachers affect a wide range of students’ educational and social outcomes, but how they contribute to students’ involvement in school discipline is less understood. We estimate the impact of same-race teachers and other observed teacher qualifications on students’ likelihood of receiving a disciplinary referral. Using data that track all disciplinary referrals and the identity of both the referred and referring individuals from a large and diverse urban school district in California, we find that Black students’ probability of receiving at least one referral is about 3 percentage points (26.6% of Black students’ base rate) smaller than for white students when they have a Black teacher versus a white teacher. The reduced likelihoods of receiving referrals from same-race teachers also convert to reduced likelihoods of being suspended. These results are mostly driven by referrals for violence, interpersonal offences, and walkout infractions, middle school students, and students from high-poverty schools. Students are also less likely to be referred by more experienced teachers and by teachers who hold either an English language learners or special education credential. While it is unclear whether these findings are due to variation in teachers’ effects on actual student behavior, variation in teachers’ proclivities to make disciplinary referrals, or a combination of the two, these results nonetheless suggest that teachers play a central role in the prevalence of, and inequities in, office referrals and subsequent student discipline.

Race and Ethnicity Effects in School Discipline: A Coarsened Exact Matching Analysis

Much prior work has revealed that minority students are more likely than White youth to experience school suspensions, expulsions, and office referrals. However, the research establishing these patterns has relied exclusively on regression-based methods, which may not ensure adequate between-group balance on the measured covariates. Using data from the 2012 to 2019 8th/10th grade cohorts of the Monitoring the Future survey ( N = 62,962), this study compares the treatment effects estimated following coarsened exact matching (CEM) with those generated using conventional methods on unmatched data. The results from both sets of analyses reveal notable effects of race but less consistent findings for Hispanic ethnicity. Further, while the effect sizes are similar, the average adjusted predictions from the matched data are more modest.

Who Refers Whom? The Effects of Teacher Characteristics on Disciplinary Office Referrals

Who Refers Whom? The Effects of Teacher Characteristics on Disciplinary Office Referrals

Genetic Screening of Relatives of Decedents Experiencing Sudden Unexpected Death: Medical Examiner's Office Referrals to a Multi-Disciplinary Cardiogenetics Program

Genetic Screening of Relatives of Decedents Experiencing Sudden Unexpected Death: Medical Examiner's Office Referrals to a Multi-Disciplinary Cardiogenetics Program

Racial and Ethnic Disparities in School Discipline: The Interactive Effects of Gender and Parental Educational Attainment

Prior research has provided consistent evidence that minority students are more likely than White youth to experience punitive forms of discipline in schools. Scholars have theorized that these disadvantages are closely connected to gender and socioeconomic status, but little research has explored how these factors independently and jointly might moderate the effects of race/ethnicity. Using data from the 2012 to 2018 8th and 10th grade cohorts of the Monitoring the Future survey ( N = 53,986), these analyses find that minority students are more likely than Whites to experience suspension/expulsion and office referrals, and this pattern is especially prominent among females. Further, racial/ethnic disparities are amplified for youth whose parents have higher levels of educational attainment, though some differences by gender also emerge.

The Effect of Video Self-Modeling for Black Boys with Challenging Behaviors in an Urban Setting

Black boys generally have the most disparate outcomes (i.e. exclusionary punishment and office referrals) in regard to discipline in schools, which necessitates the need for interventions to help alleviate this issue. As such, the purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of a video self-modeling (VSM) intervention on students’ challenging behaviors in an urban school setting. Utilizing an A-B-A-B withdrawal design, four Black boys in elementary school participated in the intervention. Results of visual analysis and Tau-U (Zion −1, p = 0.0018; DeAndre −1, p = 0.0027; and Malik = −0.6775, p = 0.0343) indicated significant and positive effects of VSM in relation to students’ behavior. Furthermore, teachers found the intervention to be acceptable based on the Intervention Rating Profile-15 (IRP-15). Future research and implications for the use of video self-modeling in urban schools are discussed.

Linking Student Outcomes to School Administrator Discretion in the Implementation of Teacher Observations

Purpose: Many studies have explored school administrator discretion in the implementation of teacher evaluation and observation systems. However, we are unaware of any studies that quantitatively link discretionary administrator behaviors to student outcomes. The purpose of this study was to (a) explore the determinants of observations arising from administrator discretion and (b) explore the extent to which “discretionary observations” were associated with average student achievement scores and disciplinary offenses. Method: We applied multilevel modeling to 3 years of teacher panel data from more than 80% of Tennessee school districts. Findings: Observable characteristics, differences between schools each year, and teacher traits explain more than 80% of the variation in discretionary observations; teacher prior-year observation and composite effectiveness scores were the strongest predictors. No evidence suggested that average student achievement scores or behavior suffered among teachers who received fewer observations than assigned by policy. Average student achievement scores rose among teachers receiving supplementary observations compared with the years when they received the policy-prescribed number. Implications for Research and Practice: Quantitative research can substantially control for discretionary observations using multilevel modeling. Observers might be encouraged to not observe high-performing teachers more than what is prescribed by policy. Observers seemingly deviate from observation policy in ways that do not increase office referrals and may improve student achievement.

Early Childhood Education: Academic and Behavioral Benefits of Prekindergarten Educational Programming

State-funded prekindergarten educational programming for all children is a rarity in the United States. Five states offer no financial support to fund prekindergarten educational programming, and the majority offer partial funding. Only three states provide universally funded prekindergarten educational programming. The purpose of this study is to examine some of the benefits of prekindergarten educational programming to identify reasons to expand the programs and subsequently enroll, at the very least, all economically eligible children. The study analyzed the results of attendance, behavior reports, and test scores to evaluate the academic and behavioral success of six cohorts of students in Grades K–5. All students studied qualified for educational programming support at the level of 100% poverty. The two studied groups are those students who attended the prekindergarten educational programming and those students who did not attend prekindergarten educational programming. The study revealed statistically significant results predominately with behavior and more specifically with office referrals. Students who attended prekindergarten educational programming received fewer office referrals at a statistically significant level compared with those students who did not attend the prekindergarten programming. Academically, the overall results of the data showed that those students who completed prekindergarten educational programming outscored their counterparts who did not attend prekindergarten but not at a statistically significant level. Studies showing the benefits of prekindergarten educational programming may motivate local and state officials to support funding to ensure that at a minimum, all students who qualify based on poverty will have the opportunity to attend prekindergarten educational programming.

The beliefs about race and culture operating in our discipline strategies: a commentary

The prevalence of racial disparities in discipline outcomes continues despite a prominence of new strategies and research. When implemented with fidelity, PBIS (Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports) is shown to contribute to reductions in school suspension, expulsion, and other positive educational outcomes. Despite its promise for making school discipline more efficient and less exclusionary, PBIS in some schools struggles to address disproportionate patterns of exclusion and office referrals. This commentary offers the use of critical race theory framing as a way to understand how teachers’ beliefs about race and culture operate within their personalized lives and transfer themselves within the schooling environment.

Principals navigating discipline decisions for social justice: An informed grounded theory study

PurposeSchool leaders are charged with making equitable decisions almost daily, but little about this process is known. Due to research suggesting principal implicit bias, or the stereotypes and attitudes held by individuals unconsciously that may or may not reflect actual preferences, may contribute to discipline gaps, the present study aimed to better understand how principals make discipline decisions and how implicit bias might interfere in these decisions. Research methodsThis qualitative study used in-depth interviews and document analysis with six mid-Atlantic principals to explore their discipline decision-making processes. Constant comparative analysis inclusive of explicit coding and analytical procedures supported the development of an informed grounded theory. FindingsThe data revealed a four-part recursive process of discipline decision-making inclusive of four themes relevant to equity. Principals used communication and data to gather information in a first step driven by relationships, reflected on considerations and policy to develop options in a second step driven by flexibility, selected an outcome in a third step driven by morality, and evaluated their efficacy in the recursive loop driven by experience. Implications for research and practiceThe findings allow for targeted research of the discipline decision-making process and potential consideration of practical interventions and curricular design for principal preparation programs that would allow for greater equity in discipline following office referrals.

Identifying trigger concepts to screen emergency department visits for diagnostic errors.

The diagnostic process is a vital component of safe and effective emergency department (ED) care. There are no standardized methods for identifying or reliably monitoring diagnostic errors in the ED, impeding efforts to enhance diagnostic safety. We sought to identify trigger concepts to screen ED records for diagnostic errors and describe how they can be used as a measurement strategy to identify and reduce preventable diagnostic harm. We conducted a literature review and surveyed ED directors to compile a list of potential electronic health record (EHR) trigger (e-triggers) and non-EHR based concepts. We convened a multidisciplinary expert panel to build consensus on trigger concepts to identify and reduce preventable diagnostic harm in the ED. Six e-trigger and five non-EHR based concepts were selected by the expert panel. E-trigger concepts included: unscheduled ED return to ED resulting in hospital admission, death following ED visit, care escalation, high-risk conditions based on symptom-disease dyads, return visits with new diagnostic/therapeutic interventions, and change of treating service after admission. Non-EHR based signals included: cases from mortality/morbidity conferences, risk management/safety office referrals, ED medical director case referrals, patient complaints, and radiology/laboratory misreads and callbacks. The panel suggested further refinements to aid future research in defining diagnostic error epidemiology in ED settings. We identified a set of e-trigger concepts and non-EHR based signals that could be developed further to screen ED visits for diagnostic safety events. With additional evaluation, trigger-based methods can be used as tools to monitor and improve ED diagnostic performance.

Muting Black girls: how office referral forms mask dehumanising disciplinary interactions

ABSTRACT Within US public schools, Black girls are increasingly overrepresented in exclusionary discipline. Typically, this disproportionality has been examined through the analysis of district wide discipline records including, but not limited to, office referrals. Few studies have endeavored to interrogate the structure and creation of office referrals as more than a mundane part of the disciplinary system. Based on a two-year ethnographic investigation of one high school, and drawing upon Black feminist theory, this paper examined how the structure of office referrals, and teachers’ subsequent use, enabled them to serve as critical tools in facilitating the dehumanization of Black girls during disciplinary interactions. Analysis revealed multiple ways in which referral forms empowered teachers to control the narratives surrounding misbehavior in ways that demonized Black girls while simultaneously masking their own negligence. Recommendations for practice and research are discussed.