Creating an Effective
In-School Suspension Program (ISS)
At my
current school we have notice, after looking at the failure report, that many
of the names on the report were in (In-School Suspension) during the day. In fact 43% of the students who were in In-
School Suspension received a failing grade on their report card, with almost
half with multiple failing grades.
After looking at these numbers, my mentor and I have concluded that we
need to look at how to make these students more successful here on campus with
in our ISS program. To understand the
issues with in our ISS program, I sent out electronic surveys to gather
information from our staff on their professional experiences with in ISS. I received mixed results in regards to
teacher’s experience. Many said that
they thought that ISS was a “holding” place for students. Others mentioned ISS as a place that students
wanted to be because they did not have to do anything during the day. Teachers feel like students are not being
held accountable to finish their work in ISS.
The overwhelming result from this survey from teachers was that they
felt like it was more work on them when a student went to ISS. This created an uncomfortable atmosphere for
all parties involved. Once a student is
placed in ISS, all of the student’s teachers must now deliver their work to the
student which must be completed during the day.
The program at hand has created a damaging result that teachers,
students, and administrators must deal with.
Administrators must now oversee if teachers have given work to students
in ISS. Teachers must now possibly
“create” work for the student in ISS on the given day. This makes teachers very apprehensive because
of the now “more work” created with in their daily routine. The action research of Creating an Effective
ISS Program will help students, teachers, and administrators to provide the
most successful learning environment for all parties. After meeting with my administration team we have
decided that students in ISS are falling further behind in the classroom
because of disconnect between the classroom environments. ISS is used as a discipline tool for
administration but must be improved to provide maximum education. Teachers are the best educators and resources
that we have on campus that provide the best environment. We have decided to devote one teacher per
period to In-School Suspension every day.
The rational for this is that a single teacher from a core subject will
be in ISS to help answer and provide feedback for their subject. These teachers
will also be responsible for collecting all work from students in ISS and
distributing them to the desired teachers.
Upon discussing this action research plan with collogues many have stated
that their principal makes them go in ISS during their conference period to
help out. This is not the plan that we
will be using here on my campus. We have
common planning periods along with conference periods. The plan is for the department heads to
organize their staff to be utilized effectively so that each teacher gets to
work inside ISS once during the week during their planning period. We feel this is the most effective time spent
during these planning periods as now students will have resources available for
them to be successful. All core subjects
will provide a single teacher during their planning periods. All teachers will still have 45 minutes of
conference time. We have not concluded
final results but anticipate a higher success rate because of accountability
for teachers and students. Students are
provided work along with assistance from their own teachers throughout the
day. Teachers will be able to provide
classroom like settings inside ISS to help students be successful.
“One major concern
with in-school suspension programs is that students miss educational
opportunities for learning because their environment is solitary and isolated.
In most in-school suspension classrooms, students work independently on
teacher-assigned work and are not allowed the opportunity to ask questions
about content or receive remedial instruction when needing further assistance
with school assignments (Short, 1988).”
We will communicate this vision during our staff meeting
every month. The surveys along with the
data about student success rate will be brought to the attention to the
faculty. Once this information has been
diagnosed, we will discuss the plan of action.
We will describe our strategy used in making this decision in order to
gain support. Student success is the
most important component here on campus.
Right now our students are not successful in ISS. The administration team along with the
leadership team developed this strategy for our campus. We will base the effectiveness of this plan
on the percentage of failing grades while in ISS. This action research plan will cover all
needs of the education process. There
has also been designated a Special Education teacher that will help cover one
period a day. This will help our Special
Education population so that any modifications may be met. Once put into place this action research
project will provide opportunities for students to be the most successful with
in ISS on our campus.
Short, P. M. (1988). Planning and developing in-school
suspension programs. Monographs in Education, C. T. Holmes ed., No. 9.
Athens, GA: College of Education.
