A student's behavior is disrupting the school, so you suspend them for a few days. Problem solved, right?

When the suspension is over, the student returns and so does the behavior.What I'm describing is one of the most expensive repetition loops in schools, and almost all educators have lived it. We suspend students, and it feels like we did something, but nothing actually changes.

Here is the reason why. The only consequence schools really have is some form of time loss: detention, in-school suspension, or out-of-school suspension. There is no amount of time you can take from a student that, by itself, will change how they behave if the behavior hasn't previously been taught.The only way to change a behavior is to teach the behavior.We would never assume a student learned math just because the class ended; we assess. A quiz, a problem worked out on the whiteboard, just something that shows learning happened. Yet with discipline, we assume a student learned because the consequence ended.A completed consequence is not evidence that a student learned anything.

That is the gap traditional discipline approaches never close. The emphasis is on removing the student rather than investing time in teaching the student. This workshop is about closing this gap.

Highly Effective Accountability is the core of everything taught in this workshop. It has three parts, and all three have to be present.

Consequences. The only consequence schools really have is loss of time. The real question is not how much time to take but which time loss gives you the best opportunity to work on the behavior.

Teaching. Lost time only becomes effective when you invest it back. Whenever you take a student’s time, you need to use that time to teach the behavior you want to see. No teaching, no change.

Incentives. An incentive is not a candy bar just because they behaved. The incentive we're focusing on gives the student a reason to work with you instead of against you. It transforms a consequence the student is serving into a consequence the student wants to complete.

Consequences without teaching are just punishment. Teaching without a consequence has no structure to hold it in place. Neither one works alone. Highly Effective Accountability is the integration of consequences, teaching, and incentives. That integration is what changes behavior.

 Accountability changes behavior, not consequences.

Before you choose any strategy, you have to know what you are trying to do with it. Every discipline decision serves one of three functions. The three most common approaches are prevention, intervention, and suppression.

Prevention. The best way to address a problem is to keep it from happening. Prevention rests on two things: building relationships with every stakeholder and proactively teaching appropriate behavior. You cannot prevent everything, but you don’t need to. Prevention is about minimizing, not eliminating.

Intervention. The goal of intervention is to solve the problem. This is where alternatives to suspension and targeted interventions live. If your aim is to change a behavior, this is the function you prioritize.

Suppression. The goal of suppression is to temporarily stop the problem.

Suspension is suppression, and sometimes you genuinely need an immediate, short-term stop. The mistake is treating suppression as a solution. Most schools operate under the belief that they are providing intervention when they are really engaging in suppression. This workshop teaches all three, and how to know which approach a situation actually calls for.

Highly Effective Accountability is the framework. The strategies below are how you run it, and each one fills one of its three parts.

The Consequence: Structured Day / Strengthening of ISS and All Forms of Detention

Removing a student from the learning environment means you lose essential instructional time. With Structured Day, you build a modified schedule that keeps the student in the building, strips nonessential privileges, can be paired with after-school detention, and allows the student to earn their way back to a non-structured schedule by demonstrating a successful Structured Day. We’ll also focus on how you can redesign in-school suspension and all forms of detention so that time is spent on behavior change rather than a watered-down version of classroom instruction.

The Teaching: Character Connections and Accountability Projects

Two different students break the same rule for two different reasons. One of the errors that most schools make is responding to the rule that was broken rather than the reason it was broken, and then we assume the student learned their lesson without ever checking. You build Character Connections, an intervention program ideally held in an after-school setting, that addresses the reason for the student's behavior, with the exit being to complete the work, not to run out the clock. Inside it sits the Accountability Project, an individualized project that makes the student research and prove they understand the real impact of what they did. This is how teaching becomes something you assess instead of assume.

The Incentive: What’s In It for the Student

Behavior change is a personal choice, and to make that decision, a person must answer the question: What is in it for me? Currently, many of your students put their heads down, wait out the time, and walk back into your building and their classrooms unchanged. Every student is quietly asking one question, whether they say it out loud or not. What’s in it for me? If your consequences do not require them to answer this question, you get compliance at best, but usually not even that. The way to get them to answer this question is to build the answer into the structure itself, so the student is working to complete the consequence instead of waiting out the clock. That is what turns compliance into participation.

Wrapping All Three: Partnering With Parents

Today, many parents have an adversarial approach to schools. In many cases, this is because the only calls they receive are the ones that make them feel like they are failing as parents. We provide guidance that engages parents as allies in the accountability process, turning a difficult parent into a partner.

Everything in this workshop comes back to three things: consequences, teaching, and incentives. 

This is a single two-day workshop. Both days are required because the system only works as a whole. In two days, you leave with a framework and strategies you can begin applying as soon as you return to campus.

Day One — Transforming Traditional Consequences Into Meaningful Accountability

Redesigning the consequences you already have so they change behavior rather than just pause it. You leave with Structured Day, the Highly Effective Accountability model, and a redesign of in-school suspension and detention.

Day Two — The Art and Science of Changing Behavior

How behavior actually changes, and how to build the conditions for it. You leave with the approach to consistently changing adverse behavior, Accountability Projects for testing whether your teaching landed, and the parent partnership strategy.