School board OKs restorative discipline plan

The Carson City School District Board of Trustees has reviewed and adopted its restorative discipline plan for the 2022-23 school year to remain in alignment with the Nevada Revised Statutes.
The NRS requires districts to formulate and distribute a plan delineating specific practices or approaches to egregious student behavior and include provisions focusing on schools’ concerns in the process.
The annual revisions are made in coordination with teams of Carson City school administrators, support staff, teachers, parents and middle and high school students at each campus, according to Tasha Fuson, associate superintendent of educational services, who oversees the district’s document falls in line with current reporting practices as required by law.
Fuson gave the annual overview for the plan and the need to make the revisions per NRS 392.4644.
Restorative practices and interventions were designed to use strategies to keep students engaged in the classroom as much as possible, but changes in the 2021 legislative session impacted CCSD’s philosophy on its practices, Fuson said. Its implementation of its Positive Behavior Support (PBS) plans as used by site coordinators and schoolwide multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS), a behavioral framework that provides social and emotional support for students.
Fuson said having such a plan gives administrators strategies to help them avoid serious unwanted behaviors at school. PBS interventions, for example, might refer to Bordewich Bray Elementary School’s use of its school mascot Dolphin bucks, which are rewarded to students to encourage their kindness in social situations. Fuson said school employees are trained in interventions, and MTSS details are posted on school and district websites.
Additional supports or services are provided to students with Individualized Education Plans if they are placed in an alternative environment due to behavior issues, and due process rights count as suspension, according to the plan.
Fuson said other actions include the formation of a restorative behavior committee whose responsibility is to evaluate students whose behavior is so egregious in certain circumstances they must be removed from the classroom. Committees include the principal, two teachers, a staff member and an alternative staff member. Suspension or expulsion could be determined in accordance with NRS 392.467 or they could be assigned to another classroom, but Fuson said it’s important to ask about all the options, acceptable practices and required actions the staff can and should take.
The board voted to adopt the restorative discipline plan for the 2022-23 year as presented in a 7-0 vote.