WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Winston-Salem Forsyth County Schools is changing how students are disciplined.
The school board revised its Code of Character, Conduct and Support policy.
School leaders want to focus beyond the consequences by working with students through restorative practices.
"If students are not in school, they are definitely missing the opportunity to gain the content they are going to need to succeed," said WS/FCS Superintendent Tricia McManus.
In the policy, it outlines disciplinary issues and consequences. But that's just one part of the code.
"It creates clarity around expectations across the system. It also focuses on building relationships between students and adults and honestly our students thrive if their cared for and loved and that's what happens in the code," said McManus.
To help improve a student's behavior, students will work with support personnel, counselors, and social workers depending on specific levels of consequences and interventions.
"In the past, you issue a consequence, the student comes right back to school and go back into the classroom and repeats the behavior. There's no real effort or intentionality in making sure that the behavior is not repeated," said Learning Support Chief Officer Lionel Kato.
McManus said this effort is timely, last year the school district calculated about 30,000 lost instructional days due to out-of-school suspensions.
"And that was for specific different groups of 5,000 students, that to us is not acceptable," said Mcmanus.
They hope with the new code that provides mentoring and problem solving they'll be able to decrease that number.
Starting next week students will see posters in hallways and classrooms that lay out rules for the new code.
An extensive training plan was implemented for staff and community leaders involved in the design of the code. They plan to continue that training throughout the school year.