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A friend of mine is a paraprofessional/instructional assistant who supervises an In School Suspension Program (ISS) in a rural high school in northern CA. She would like to know the effective components of an In School Suspension Program.

Perhaps we know best what makes an ineffective In School Suspension Program.

From Learning Outside the Lines by Jonathan Mooney and David Cole available at Amazon.com:

In-school suspension: It's what happens when you don't sign in when you are supposed to at the office. Signing in is what happens when you don't go to every class you are supposed to. Those are the rules. In-school suspension happened in a small cubicle of a room set off the narrow hallway between the vice principal's office and the photocopy machine. Five feet wide and eight feet long, no natural light, no door. ... All day. Six hours sitting still. Winding up tighter and tighter for six hours. By the end of the day in that room, I had nothing left inside but blind rage. Hate. Six hours under lights that gave you a headache after two. Every teacher who walked to the photocopy machine clicking his or her tongue and looking down his or her nose. I spent six hours fantasizing how I would torture them if I had the chance. What was the outcome they were hoping for? (56)

What was the outcome they were hoping for? This is the question that needs to be answered when developing an In School Suspension Program (ISS).

ISS was developed as an alternative to out of school suspension (OSS), an extended holiday for most kids, especially when a student is given OSS for truancy. Skipped school yesterday? Take another day off tomorrow at our request.

Here, I have summarized some key points from Effective In-School Suspension Programs by Mary Hrabak and Doris Settles (.html version) adding additional information and personal comments to them. For a cleaner .pdf version of this document click here: http://www.kysafeschools.org/pdfs&docs/clearpdf/issuesbriefs/iss.pdf.

In the 1970's, ISS was developed as an alternative to OSS with the intention of punishing a misbehaving student--a distraction at best, a danger to others at worst--without requiring him or her to miss instruction. However, research indicates that punishment only works temporarily and most often breeds anger, not positive change in behavior. See quote above and take a look at prison recidivism.

The most common, and least effective ISS, is one designed to punish or temporarily control misbehavior, not change behavior. This is like solitary confinement: isolate the "bad student" taking away any reinforcers for the misbehavior while allowing the other students to learn.

Beyond this "time-out," is the academic model of ISS. Instruction is continued when students are given assignments to complete while they are in ISS. Hopefully, the assignments are consistent with on-going classroom instruction. However, many times students are sent "busy work," and often students cannot complete the assignment without benefit of direct teacher instruction. Good students are rarely sent to ISS. The repeaters usually have some learning difficulties making completing the assignments a difficult if not impossible task.

The most effective ISS is the therapeutic model. Students are asked to reflect on the behavior that earned them time in ISS and to develop a plan for modifying this behavior. They are taught problem solving and conflict resolution skills. Therapeutic ISS programs contain these components:

1. Limit the number of students in the room each day to a 15 student:1 teacher ratio or less, therefore allowing the staff to give students individual attention.

2. Provide paraprofessionals to work with students as tutors as well as supervisors.

3. Require referring teachers to send students to ISS with current assignments each day.

4. Employ an ISS Coordinator to enforce the requirement that current assignments are provided each day of the suspension.

5. Set aside time for individual counseling focused on behavior identification and replacement.

6. Keep files for each student, tracking the behavior modification progress and following up with teachers to ensure that behavior is improving.

In summary, an effective ISS program is more constructive than punitive including a behavioral counseling component. Worksheets are provided in this referenced resource to use as guidelines when counseling students about their behaviors.

Additional Resources:

Creating a Caring Alternative to Suspension: Helping Students Build the Skills They Need to Succeed
Student Advisory Center (SAC)

In-School Suspension Program: A List of Components