Florida School Discipline Laws & Regulations: Data Collection, Review, and Reporting of Discipline Policies and Actions

Florida School Discipline Laws & Regulations: Data Collection, Review, and Reporting of Discipline Policies and Actions

Category: Monitoring and Accountability
Subcategory: Data Collection, Review, and Reporting of Discipline Policies and Actions
State: Florida

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Florida

LAWS

1001.212. Office of safe schools. .

There is created in the Department of Education the Office of Safe Schools. The office is fully accountable to the Commissioner of Education. The office shall serve as a central repository for best practices, training standards, and compliance oversight in all matters regarding school safety and security, including prevention efforts, intervention efforts, and emergency preparedness planning. The office shall:

(14) Develop, in coordination with the Division of Emergency Management; other federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies; fire and rescue agencies; and first responder agencies, a model family reunification plan for use by child care facilities, public K-12 schools, and public postsecondary educational institutions that are closed or unexpectedly evacuated due to a natural or manmade disaster. This model plan shall consider the integration of student information and notification systems to facilitate reunification after a natural or manmade disaster. This model plan shall be reviewed annually and updated, as applicable.

(15) Monitor compliance with requirements relating to school safety by school districts and public schools, including charter schools. The office shall report incidents of noncompliance to the commissioner pursuant to s. 1001.11(9) and the state board pursuant to s. 1008.32 and other requirements of law, as appropriate.

(16) Annually publish a list detailing the total number of safe-school officers in this state, the total number of safe-school officers disciplined or relieved of their duties because of misconduct in the previous year, the total number of disciplinary incidents involving safe-school officers, and the number of incidents in which a safe-school officer discharged his or her firearm outside of a training situation or in the exercise of his or her duties as a safe-school officer.

(17) Maintain a current directory of public school-based diversion programs and cooperate with each judicial circuit and the Department of Juvenile Justice to facilitate their efforts to monitor and enforce each governing body's compliance with s. 985.12.

1001.54. Duties of school principals.

(3) Each school principal must make the necessary provisions to ensure that all school reports are accurate and timely, and must provide the necessary training opportunities for staff to accurately report attendance, FTE program participation, student performance, teacher appraisal, and school safety and discipline data.

1003.32. Authority of teacher; responsibility for control of students; district school board and principal duties.

Subject to law and to the rules of the district school board, each teacher or other member of the staff of any school shall have such authority for the control and discipline of students as may be assigned to him or her by the principal or the principal's designated representative and shall keep good order in the classroom and in other places in which he or she is assigned to be in charge of students.

(6)(b) The principal must report on a quarterly basis to the district school superintendent and district school board each incidence of a teacher's withholding consent for a removed student to return to the teacher's class and the disposition of the incident, and the superintendent must annually report these data to the department.

1003.573. Use of restraint and seclusion on students with disabilities.

(2) Monitoring.

(c) The department shall maintain aggregate data of incidents of manual or physical restraint and seclusion and disaggregate the data for analysis by county, school, student exceptionality, and other variables, including the type and method of restraint or seclusion used. This information shall be updated monthly.

1006.09. Duties of school principal relating to student discipline and school safety.

(6) Each school principal must ensure that standardized forms prescribed by rule of the State Board of Education are used to report data concerning school safety and discipline to the department. The school principal must develop a plan to verify the accuracy of reported incidents.

(7) The State Board of Education shall adopt by rule a standardized form to be used by each school principal to report data concerning school safety and discipline.

1006.135. Hazing prohibited at schools with any of grades 6-12.

(2) School district policy.–Each school district shall adopt in rule a policy that prohibits hazing and establishes consequences for a student who commits an act of hazing. The policy must include:

(e) A requirement that each incident of hazing be reported in the school's safety and discipline report required under s. 1006.09(6). The report must include the number of hazing incidents reported, the number of incidents referred to a local law enforcement agency, the number of incidents that result in disciplinary action taken by the school, and the number of incidents that do not result in either referral to a local law enforcement agency or disciplinary action taken by the school.

1006.147. Bullying and harassment prohibited.

(4) Each school district shall adopt and review at least every 3 years a policy prohibiting bullying and harassment of a student or employee of a public K-12 educational institution. Each school district's policy shall be in substantial conformity with the Department of Education's model policy. The school district bullying and harassment policy shall afford all students the same protection regardless of their status under the law. The school district may establish separate discrimination policies that include categories of students. The school district shall involve students, parents, teachers, administrators, school staff, school volunteers, community representatives, and local law enforcement agencies in the process of adopting and reviewing the policy. The school district policy must be implemented by each school principal in a manner that is ongoing throughout the school year and integrated with the school's curriculum, bullying prevention and intervention program, discipline policies, and other violence prevention efforts. The school district policy must contain, at a minimum, the following components:

(k) A procedure for including incidents of bullying or harassment in the school's report of data concerning school safety and discipline required under s. 1006.09(6). The report must include each incident of bullying or harassment and the resulting consequences, including discipline and referrals. The report must include in a separate section each alleged incident of bullying or harassment that does not meet the criteria of a prohibited act under this section with recommendations regarding such incidents. The Department of Education shall aggregate information contained in the reports. [...]

(8) On or before January 1 of each year, the Commissioner of Education shall report to the Governor, the President of the Senate, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives on the implementation of this section. The report shall include data collected pursuant to paragraph (4)(k).

REGULATIONS

6A-1.0017. School Environmental Safety Incident Reporting (SESIR).

(1) Purpose. The purpose of this rule is to set forth the requirements school districts and charter schools must use to report disruptive or criminal incidents to the Florida Department of Education so that the data can, in turn, be used in required state and federal reports, including EdFacts, the United States Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights Data Collection (required by 20 U.S.C. 3413(c)(1)), the Gun Free Schools Act report (required by 20 U.S.C. 7961(d) and (e)), the Every Student Succeeds Act report cards (required by 20 US.C. 6311(h)(1) and (2)), and state reports on Bullying and Harassment (required by Section 1006.147, F.S.). SESIR data is also used to design and evaluate interventions to provide a safe learning environment. SESIR is not a law enforcement reporting system.