Student Support Strategies

Creating an Educational Community

This work is aligned with the Five Priorities for Success and the MPS Strategic Plan with the vision of creating a positive school climate for all students. Schools utilize proactive strategies to support students and engage with alternatives to suspension when appropriate. Throughout the district, this data is utilized to strategize the best use of the resources at hand, servicing all schools with Tier 1 supports and focusing on those demonstrating a need for additional supports.

For the 2024-2025 school year, the Discipline Action Plan aligns coaching support, best practice, messaging, professional development, and student voice to best support students and school staff members based on need. Specifically, across the district we will have the following understanding:

• Creating a positive school climate and reducing disciplinary actions starts day one with focused action steps at the beginning of the school year and consistently maintained throughout the year.
• Alignment of work within the Attendance Improvement Plan to positively change school culture and climate for all students.
• Professional development and coaching for school leaders, school teams, and individual staff members is required.
• Monthly highlight of best practice within the Culture, Climate, and Alternatives to Suspension Toolkit with professional development and coaching.
• Alignment and collaboration of district climate resources and messaging to support the most vulnerable schools, based on regular data review.
• Monthly data mining to continually identify schools and students of focus to ensure supports are aligned and focused on need.

Universal Supports for an Educational Community & Climate

• Relationships and community
• Expectations and procedures
• Skill development
• Accountability systems
• Systems of acknowledgement

District Educational Community Team

To support schools across the district building a positive climate and culture, a cross-departmental collaboration has been created to align staff members on a variety of district teams. The following departments are supporting culture, climate and discipline:

• PBIS
• Restorative Practices
• Violence Prevention Program
• Black and Latino Male Achievement (BLMA)
• Equity, Access and Inclusion
• Gender and Identity Inclusion 
• Specialized Services

The following four pathways will ensure district culture, climate and discipline are prioritized throughout the district.

Antiracism

• Best practices to address disproportionality
• Student Discipline Committees, focus groups, and other methods to collect student voice
• Courageous Conversations about Race
• Strategies for interrupting bias
• Re-entry after discipline
• Equitable classroom management
• Critical reflective practices
• Culturally Responsive Problem Solving for Teams

PBIS Tiered Support

• PBIS webpage
• Improve classroom and school climate through 'universal supports' and best practices
• Build meaningful relationships and community
• Co-create expectations, procedures, and agreements
• Collectively teach and practice expectations, procedures, and agreements
• Develop systems for holding self and others accountable
• Acknowledge all students and recognize their worth
• Check-In/Check-Out
• Social Academic Instructional Groups

Mental Wellness

• Trauma sensitive schools
• Mindfulness
• Bullying awareness
• Social Emotional Learning
• Youth Mental Health First Aid
• School Community Partnership for Mental Health (SCPMH)

Restorative Practices

• Utilizing restorative discipline
• District and school level book cohorts
• Restorative questions and conversations
• Repairing Harm circles
• Restorative Practices webpage

Climate Equity Liaison

All schools identify a Climate Equity Liaison who supports the school and individual staff members in addressing disproportionality and creating an educational community.

Expectations

• Receive regular updates on best practice regarding antiracism, bias, and equitable school climate and share with all school staff members.
• Support school-level professional development on a variety of topics.
• Attending district-supported networking and professional development with Courageous Conversations about Race, Beyond Diversity, and other opportunities involving equity.
• Regularly review and share school and district disproportionality data.
• Coach school staff members on interrupting bias and holding Courageous Conversations about Race across the school community.
• Support Student Discipline Committees at traditional middle and high schools.

Upcoming Dates

• Fall Student Leadership Summit --> Friday, October 25, 2024
• Spring Student Leadership Summit --> Friday, April 25, 2025

Resources

District & School Climate

• Culture, Climate and Alternatives to Suspension Toolkit
• Directory of Support
• Creating an Educational Community & Positive School Climate Processes Guide
• Research based best practices to address disproportionality
• Five Universal Supports
• Rights & Responsibilities Handbook

Professional Development: Self-Paced Modules

• Discipline Disproportionality Modules
• Antiracism Modules
• Culturally Responsive Problem Solving for Teams Modules

Resources for Families- Digital Citizenship

• Parents Act Now! Bullying Prevention (from Children's Wisconsin)
• Cyberbullying resources (National Crime Prevention Council)
• Cyberbullying and digital citzenship lessons and activities (Cyberbullying Research Center)
• Teaching Digital Citizenship (Common Sense Education)
• Additional Support- contact your school counselor or principal

Student Voice 

All traditional middle and high schools have a Student Discipline Committee that meets twice per month to discuss student recommendations regarding school climate and culture. Annually there are also two Student Leadership Summits in which these discussions are highlighted across the district. 

Major themes of these conversations included:

• School spirit and extra-curricular activities
• Continued community building
• Academic engagement
• Access to mental health supports
• Student leadership opportunities

Courageous Conversations about Race

In our vision of addressing discipline disproportionality, Milwaukee Public Schools is partnering with Coureageous Conversations about Race to build racial equity throughout the district. Courageous Conversation is utilzing the Four Agreements, Six Conditions and Compass in order to engage, sustain, and deepen intra-racial and inter-racial dialogue about race, and is an essential foundation for examining and addressing institutionalized culture and structures that promote racial disparities.

Through this collaboration, all MPS staff members are attending their one-day seminar Courageous Conversations about Race Exploration in which participants learn about the tools within the framework including the Four Agreements, Six Conditions and Compass. Participants engage in whole group and small group discussions on a variety of topics utilizing these tools.  A district team has partnered with mentors at Courageous Conversations about Race and have become certified practitioners and facilitators, licensed to conduct these seminars within the district. Additionally the district has created a District Equity Leadership Team with membership from a variety of district departments meeting monthly to continue to build racial equity and embed these tools and conversations throughout the district.