School Climate, Teacher Characteristics, and School Discipline - Evidence From New York City

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Adam

School discipline is a central educational policy and practice challenge, with teachers influencing both the production and disruption of racial inequities in disciplinary outcomes. This longitudinal study analyzes data from over one thousand public middle and high schools in New York City using linear regression to connect teachers’ perceptions of school climate and teacher characteristics to suspension rates and disparities. Findings link more positive climate perceptions, greater teaching experience, and a higher share of Black teachers to lower office referral and suspension rates, overall and for Black and Latinx students.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages23

Reading Time58 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

School discipline as an urgent educational issue

Teacher roles and office discipline referrals

School climate and racial inequality in discipline

AERA Open January-December 2024, Vol. 10, No. 1, pp. 1–23 DOI: 10. 1177/23328584241263860 Article reuse guidelines: [sagepub.com/journals-permissions](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)[ ](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)© The Author(s) 2024. [https://journals.sagepub.com/home/ero](https://journals.sagepub.com/home/ero) School Climate, Teacher Characteristics, and School Discipline: Evidence From New York City Luis A. Rodriguez New York University Richard O. Welsh Vanderbilt University Chelsea Daniels New York University School discipline is a salient problem of educational policy and practice. Teachers play an important role in the production and disruption of racial inequities in school discipline, yet there remains a need to disentangle the relationship between teacher characteristics, their perceptions of school climate, and school discipline patterns. This study uses longitudinal data representing over one thousand public middle and high schools in New York City and linear regression methods to examine the relationship between teachers’perceptions of school climate, teacher characteristics, and the rates of and disparities in suspensions. Overall, results indicate more positive teacher perceptions of school climate, higher years of teaching experience, and a greater share of Black teachers are independently associated with lower rates of office referrals and suspensions, overall and especially for Black and Latinx students. The study concludes by discussing implications for teacher education and on-the-job support as well as school leadership. Keywords: school climate, teacher characteristics, teacher beliefs, school discipline, equity, educational policy, regression analyses Introduction School discipline remains an urgent educational issue of the modern era. Prior research has shown that exclusionary forms of school discipline such as suspensions and expulsions have various deleterious consequences for children and youth, including exacerbating achievement disparities by disproportionately removing students of color from the classroom and disrupting their exposure to standard classroom instruction (Gregory et al., 2010; N. Hwang, 2018; Skiba et al., 2016; Welsh & Little, 2018a), and ultimately increasing the likelihood of long-term negative outcomes, such as higher rates of involvement in the juvenile and criminal justice systems as well as poorer health and socioeconomic well-being into adulthood (Bacher-Hicks et al., 2019; Davison et al., 2022; Duarte et al., 2023) . Black and Brown students disproportionately experience exclusionary discipline compared to their White and Asian peers, even in response to similar subjective infractions, such as not following school dress code or“being too loud”(Anyon et al., 2016; Barrett et al., 2021; Welsh, 2021a; Welsh & Little, 2018b) . Prior research documents that racial disparities in exclusionary school disciplinary outcomes are largely due to subjective offenses (Girvan et al., 2017; Legette & Anyon, 2023)—or disciplinary decisions largely at the discretion of educators in their response to perceived misbehavior (Barrett et al., 2021; Girvan et al., 2017; Welsh, 2022, 2023a) . Scholars contend that racial and ethnic disparities in exclusionary discipline arising from teacher-subjective decision-making are tied to structural inequities and racism within schools (Legette & Anyon, 2023; Sobti & Welsh, 2023) . Teachers serve a central role in school discipline processes, as they often initiate the process by reporting instances of student misbehavior through an office discipline referral (ODR) to identify a student for behavioral intervention (Gregory et al., 2010; Marcucci & Elmesky, 2020; Nichols et al., 2006) . More specifically, teachers’ classroom management skills (Cho et al., 2020); teacher-student racial mismatch and the lack of racial diversity within the educator Creative Commons Non Commercial CC BY-NC: This article is distributed under

FAQs

How does the study connect teacher factors to school discipline outcomes?

It uses longitudinal data and linear regression to examine relationships among teachers’ perceptions of school climate, teacher characteristics, and suspension and office referral rates.

What variables are associated with lower suspension and office referral rates?

More positive teacher perceptions of school climate, higher years of teaching experience, and a greater share of Black teachers are independently associated with lower rates overall and especially for Black and Latinx students.

Why do exclusionary discipline outcomes show racial disparities according to prior research cited here?

The text emphasizes that disparities are tied to subjective offenses and educators’ discretionary disciplinary decisions, linked to structural inequities and racism within schools.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Adam