Discipline Code

Our discipline code will be here soon for student, parent and faculty reference. The following framework will guide us.

(DRAFT - please direct all comments to Dr. Maldonado) The Discipline and Honor Code will be developed jointly by students, parents and the faculty - that is by all members of our community through a collaborative dialogue that will be initiated in our first town hall meeting in late Spring 2007 and that will involve incoming students and parents and the founding faculty. We will develop this jointly (rather than have me or the Planning Team establish it by caveat) because we want to set the tone of community collaboration and shared decision making that we believe is a fundamenal part of our school's ethos.

Community Principles:

• The principles of caring, honesty, courtesy, discipline, empathy, respect, responsibility, honor, and courage will guide our expectations of behavior of students and other members of our community.
• We will use critical dialogue and rational scrutiny to establish school norms, rules, and measures of discipline that are effective and that humanize all of us.
• We are a caring and courteous community and we show our attention to this in our everyday interactions.
• We expect our students to behave in ways that demonstrate a commitment to tolerance and empathy, that demonstrate their developing sense of responsiblity and personal maturity, and that show we all care and feel about the well being of others.
• Discipline is central part of our values. Personal and academic excellence - an expectation we will hold all our students acountable for cannot be pursued without large measures of selfdiscipline.
• Intelletual and moral courage are also fundamental to our humanistic ethics, as is respect for the differences that come from being a community of diverse individuals.
• Our rules will have reasons. We do not establish rules arbitrarily, or without consideration of their unintended effects. Breaking our community covenant must have consequences. We all have a right to know what these consequences may be and have a right to due process.

The Fairness and Justice Committee

At CSS-MSE, we believe students' moral and ethical development depends upon being engaged in judging matters of right and wrong in the school community.  The Fairness and Justice Committee is a panel of elected student justices and faculty members, including a facilitator, who hear cases brought by members of the school community.  Cases can include a range of issues, including academic dishonesty, student misbehavior, complaints by students against faculty members, or other issues of a challenging interpersonal nature that arise in a school setting.  Most Fairness and Justice cases are taken only after the parties involved have attempted an informal mediation or have used prior steps in the school's ladder of consequences.  Cases involving physical threats, violence, or hateful speech or actions are beyond the scope of the Fairness and Justice Committee and are resolved directly by the principal or assistant principal.

Beyond providing a structured and unbiased forum for disagreements to be heard, at the end of each case the Fairness and Justice Committee provides a recommendation to the principal that can include restorative actions such as public apology or community service, or punitive  consequences, such as suspension or detention.