Involving Teachers in Schoolwide Behavior Policy

We've all seen schools that give teachers shared decision making when it comes to curriculum and instruction, but it is less common to hear about giving teachers input into behavior policies. According to a New Teacher Center survey of more than one million teachers, only 37.6 percent of teachers in high-poverty schools and 31.8 percent in low-poverty schools felt they had input into discipline procedures (Ingersoll, Dougherty, & Sirinides, 2017).

This is a real problem, given all the research that points to the importance of schoolwide buy-in on behavior policies, not only for the welfare of students, but also of teachers. In an interview with The Atlantic about his research on teacher turnover, Richard Ingersoll concluded, "Those schools that do a far better job of managing and coping with and responding to student behavioral issues have far better teacher retention." In addition, he said that the schools that allow teachers to "have more say—their voice counts—have distinctly better teacher retention" (Riggs, 2013).