Adequate Yearly Progress

by Roxanna Elden

Everyone knew the real reason discipline numbers looked good: Mrs. Rawlins was the assistant principal in charge of discipline, and she rarely enforced any actual consequences. This not only kept suspension numbers low, it also meant few teachers bothered to fill out referral forms in the first place—and these were the two ways the district calculated discipline numbers. It was, of course, these same two tendencies that caused actual student behavior at the school to skid downhill, but this was no time to make changes to the one set of numbers that felt assured.