How Schools Unwittingly Killed Basic Rules and Expectations

Student behavior has become a huge issue during the past decade in our nation’s public schools. It’s not just an increase in one-time over-the-top incidents and escalating bad conduct, but also an increase in general disregard for basic expectations and rules.

Some may point to bad kids and bad parents, while others will point to Boomers and Gen Xer’s as the old folks just overreacting, screaming at kids to get off their lawn.

Whether the severity is just perception or a serious change in behavior, most will admit that things have gotten, at least, somewhat worse. Even the most basic expectations and rules seem to be pushed aside by students and, in many cases, parents too. Stories hit social media every day of either constant disruptions in schools, chaos in classrooms, verbal altercations between teachers and students, or some other outrageous occurrence. These are just the highlights.

But why is this happening more often? Finding an answer may start with a boy and his horse.

In November of 2021, Gloucester High School senior Austin McGill pulled a senior prank by riding a horse into the hallways of a school building. It disrupted everything as students poured out of classrooms to see what was going on, throwing Gloucester into disorder. The Virginia student got a ten-day suspension for the stunt and social media exploded with opinions about the incident and the punishment.

There were two camps: One camp thought it was just a harmless prank and felt the punishment was unwarranted, demanding the suspension be lifted. The other camp saw this as a larger issue of students disregarding appropriate behavior, expectations, rules and what is acceptable in school.

The former camp seems to see incidents like this individually, demanding that we all consider this specific incident from all sides and not just blindly punish a child. The latter camp seems to see the incident as another example that points toward a larger issue of students violating basic expectations of behavior, and then being excused for their actions, which goes far beyond any single incident.

Austin’s mother had the typical reaction that many had in the former camp. According to news reports, she said: “It was just a harmless senior prank to bring smiles and laughter. I don’t think he needed to be suspended for ten days — or more — over something that hurt no one. Three days max, if a punishment was really necessary. In my opinion, it was not. Nothing in code or laws prohibits riding a horse to school.”

Her comments highlight the problematic attitude that many feel parents and students have today. Her son’s situation is different than others. Her son’s excuses are valid and usurp expectations and rules, assuming what he did even violated a rule, according to her. In essence, her son’s individual reasons and circumstances trump expectations and rules that should apply to all.

And here’s the kicker… the schools are at fault for creating this mindset because that is the discipline model they adopted.

School districts across the nation have changed their culture when it comes to discipline and how they handle misbehaviors. It has moved from a punitive model to a more liberal approach that focuses on getting to the core reasons “why the student is misbehaving” rather than just treating every misbehavior the same and issuing consequences. They use discussion and conflict resolution methods to solve the problems by getting everyone to understand why the problem exists in the first place and actively attempting to address the root of the issue without just blindly laying down a consequence. It’s a student-centric model that treats every individual student and every individual incident differently.

However, this approach creates a problem for schools. You cannot approach discipline in this way, while at the same time, enforcing basic rules and expectations for everyone.

Basic expectations of behavior and rules can no longer apply to everyone because everyone is an individual and all incidents are unique. Under this model, rules that apply to everyone cannot really apply to everyone. Ultimately, over time, they apply to no one.

Most may recognize this discipline model under the name restorative practices, but it has other names too. As I stated, the model is designed to solve behavioral issues through “talking it out,” then decipher why a particular student is misbehaving in the first place, versus just a blanket punitive punishment for everyone.

The reasons why school districts have adopted these models is very complicated and politically driven. At its basic level, these policies were adopted because of political pressure to create fairness and equality in how schools administer punishment so no student is punished unfairly. It’s also driven by school districts’ fear that they could be targeted for treating students differently and to make sure they never show any bias or favoritism.

Overtime, this morphed into the idea that all excuses are valid because everyone has their own individual truth. For schools, already under scrutiny to maintain perfect fairness, no excuse can be viewed as less of an excuse (or no excuse for that matter) versus any other excuse. Who’s to really say my excuse isn’t valid, but someone else’s is?

During my last few years of teaching I saw a huge spike in students being combative or dismissive when teachers and administrators tried to enforce basic rules and expectations. Being late to class, ignoring classroom directions, talking during instruction, playing on their phone, roaming around campus during class time… and the list goes on. Most of the excuses or reasons I heard sounded much like the attitudes of McGill’s: Their actions are excusable regardless of expectations and rules because their situation is unique from all others.

This may be why many kids feel they can do whatever they want a lot of the time. There is a legitimate reason for their behavior. However, for any institution to function well, there has to be basic standards that everyone has to follow, and public schools have seemingly abandoned this approach, whether they realize it or not.

Now, many reasons for misbehavior are warranted and legitimate, and that’s the sad part of this. Many students have circumstances beyond their control and act out because of real issues, but that gets lost when everyone has a legitimate excuse. The kids in most need of the help restorative practices could provide fall through the cracks. Schools do not have the training, manpower, or resources to deal with discipline issues in this manner, nor do they have the leverage to validate one reason over the other and filter out who really needs the help, which would reduce how overwhelmed staff is with student misbehavior.

If every action or behavior by any student, no matter what it is, needs to be seen as an individual incident, then we cannot have basic rules or expectations that everyone must follow because everyone exists in this gray area… and schools cannot manage such an enormous undertaking.

Programs like restorative practices are a great idea if administered correctly, so I’m not here bashing on this approach. Rather, I’m attempting to illustrate why a specific mix of social pressure and lack of resources may be making our schools more dysfunctional and the reason why we’re seeing more issues on campuses every day.

In a perfect world, we would have the resources to handle every person individually, but we do not, especially in schools. If our education system continues this way, I do not see an ending that is positive. It will likely grow to a point where individual incidents become bigger, or constant behavioral problems will become so frequent and widespread, that schools will no longer be able to ignore them or ignore the ineffective way in which they perceive and handle them. We will have to deal with this eventually.