Code of Conduct

Discipline Procedures During Blended Learning and Discipline Code Letters for Parents

In accordance with the DOE Framework for Great Schools, schools must be culturally-responsive spaces where students feel safe to be themselves and develop confidence. To help provide students with a safe, supportive, and inclusive learning environment, the Chancellor’s Citywide Behavioral Expectations to Support Student Learning (including the discipline code) outlines the guidelines and expectations for student behavior in school. The grades K–5 and 6–12 discipline codes for 2019–20 remain in effect for the 2020–21 school year, and apply to all students for both in-person and remote instruction.

You are required to provide parents with information annually about the discipline code. To do so, please ensure all parents receive this letter on the Discipline Code Resources InfoHub page by September 30—either through email and/or by backpacking a printed copy and sending it home with students who are participating in blended learning. The letter will be available in all DOE-supported languages by September 17 on the Discipline Code Resource InfoHub page.

Please use resources on the Discipline Code Resources InfoHub page, which include slideshow presentations for staff, students, and parents. With the new blended-learning model, please discuss the discipline code with your staff and students, as well as how you can best support one another as a learning community; also encourage your guidance counselors, parent coordinators, PTA members, and other staff members to engage in conversations about the discipline code with parents.

In addition, you should also review guidance regarding procedures for investigations of student misconduct, teacher removal of students, and principal’s and superintendent’s suspensions, which will generally remain the same for blended learning. Additional information for remote instruction is noted where relevant in this guidance. It is important to note:

All student misconduct must be promptly investigated. Protocols for investigations of student misconduct remain the same when the required staff members and students are in the school building during blending learning.
All incidents must continue to be recorded in the Online Occurrence Reporting System (OORS), within one school day. All disciplinary removals and related supports and interventions must also continue to be entered in OORS and the Suspensions and Office of Hearings Online (SOHO) system. Both OORS and SOHO may be accessed using your DOE Outlook credentials, via the OSYD Portal link when on a DOE workstation or VPN or on the OSYD Portal via the DOE remote workspace.
Following existing procedures, teacher removals and student suspensions must be served over consecutive school days, regardless of whether those days are remote or in-person.
During blended learning and because of COVID-19 guidance to socially distance, principal’s suspension conferences should be conducted remotely through any secure video conference platform approved by the DOE for use during remote learning, unless the parent requests that it be held in-person.
For a superintendent’s suspension hearing, parents will have the option to have the hearing be conducted virtually over a secure video conference platform approved by the DOE for use during remote learning.
Regardless of whether a student receives instruction remotely or in-person, students must be provided with alternative instruction throughout the period of their removal or suspension, including the period in which they are removed prior to a superintendent’s suspension hearing or principal’s suspension conference.
Students with IEPs or 504 plans (referred to collectively as students with disabilities or SWDs) who are subject to a disciplinary change of placement are afforded specific protections under federal and state law and regulations and DOE policy. Related special education meetings and conferences between parents and school officials, including Manifestation Determination Reviews (MDRs) and suspension plan meetings, will be conducted virtually during blended learning.

For questions, contact your borough director of student suspensions.