Appropriate Disciplinary Procedures - Essay Example

A certain disciplinary procedure is used in dealing with teachers cases to ensure that should a particular teacher is alleged for any form of misconduct, he may receive fair and consistent judgment. The current law allows termination of teaching contracts due to immorality or inefficiency. It also emphasizes that a certain due-process must be complied with in terminating teachers (Ohio Legislative Service Commission, 1997). First and foremost, the teacher's employment record should be considered.

Hence preliminary investigation should be done. The booklet "Pastoral Care in Schools: Child Protection, which provides supplementary advice and invokes disciplinary procedures when necessary, should be consulted whenever the issues are related to child protection (deni.gov, 2008). Once the investigation is completed, the Disciplinary Authority will decide on the appropriate action. Should it be decided that the case invokes formal procedure; the Disciplinary Authority has to ask for advice from the Employing Authority.

And when the offense committed would lead to the teacher's dismissal, the officer of the Employing Authority has to be present in all proceedings. The very thing that the concerned teacher receives is a verbal warning, and then the teacher will be informed in writing. The final written warning will be issued by the Disciplinary Authority once they observed the recurrence of the same offense. Failure to respond accordingly to the final written warning, the teacher will be subjected to further disciplinary actions which include withholding future pay, demotion, and suspension (deni.gov, 2008).

Students' suspension serves for many purposes. It includes removing dangerous students from their classrooms without their education being interrupted by the process through an alternative education program (AEPs). Based on the Texas Education Code, once a student commits any offensive acts, he must be placed in a DAEP. Expelled students receive similar treatments thus they would either be placed on a regular DAEP or on a juvenile justice AEP. The mandatory placement is usually short-term but can last longer depending upon the discretion of the school administrator.

The code also mandates the adoption of a code of conduct specific for each school's needs and should specify the conditions wherein a student will be subjected to DAEP (Reyes, 2001). The handicapped students who committed offensive acts are also subjected to similar suspension procedures. It was also put front that due process must be followed in order to prevent violation of rights to education. These handicapped students will be transferred to a more restrictive setting (Yell, 1991). It is best for them to be transferred to a new environment since one factor of their misbehavior may include the influence of the people around them.

With the desire to see a certain pattern of behavior in a student, forms of discipline are administered by schools. Corporal punishment was one of these disciplinary actions. However, it received various criticisms due to the fact that it was considered abusive since corporal punishment includes responding violently to misbehavior, humiliating students, and either injuring them physically or psychologically (Human Rights Watch, 2008). This form of discipline may be too hard to understand and instead of reacting positively to it, the students may become withdrawn or fearful.

This may even lower the morale of the student causing him to become even more delinquent or rebellious. There are so many negative effects of corporal punishment hence the State Board of Education prohibits the use of corporal punishment to any student offenders in public schools (Eikenberry, 1992) and the Human Rights Watch Organization even sent a recommendation to the President of the United States to ban corporal punishment (Human Rights Watch, 2008).Situations sometimes call for disciplinary actions.

This is true for both teachers and students since they may become offenders because of misbehaviors. It is just important that appropriate procedures will be followed before administering any form of discipline so that the rights of the offender will not be violated.