Over the past few decades there has been an ever increasing attempt to collect data on schools in the areas of:

• school performance (example, is "adequate yearly progress" being achieved)

• matters of compliance (example, are the rules and regulations of grant programs and other funding mechanisms such as "average daily attendance" being adhered to)

• areas of perceived potential injustice (example, are particular/all minorities achieving and disciplined consistent with the same for other student groups in the school)

For years this was done on paper, then in more static spreadsheet and word processing apps, and now increasingly utilizing 21st century data-base management tools.  Still, we tend to collect a bunch of data to 'report out' (to the state, the feds, etc.) without really using the data much beyond that to analyze, inform, and effect decision-making. 


There are so many examples that we are in this stage of development which I intend to elaborate on in future posts.  In this post, though, introducing one of the facades at play in the discipline programs most of our schools are practicing, I would like to differentiate between 'software discipline tools' designed primarily to address the function of reporting out data to meet state and federal requirements for the reasons above versus a true discipline tool that make the actual labor of running a discipline program on a school campus more efficient, effective, and professional --->all the while less burdensome.

Most schools now use software to manage grades, attendance, and other such reporting aspects of running a school.  Commonly these are referred to as "student management systems" or "student information systems," the SMS or SIS, respectively.  Most of these software programs were adopted by schools for the primary purpose of collecting and reporting out data --->grades, attendance, discipline, student schedules, and other data that is input and reported out.  Where they go beyond the primary purpose of gathering and reporting data (and even often to this end), they tend to be rather thin in utility and clunky in execution.  Many are only now trying to add 'modules' to be able to tout doing it all in one mammoth piece of software, but they tend to do so superficially and often with the result of an even clunkier piece of software.

True discipline tools, such as EdClick's Discipline Manager, go way beyond what any of these primarily reporting tools do.  They actually facilitate the discipline process on a campus.  They streamline and inform referrals as well as resulting administrative actions (consequences), increase communication among all involved as well as others who can influence future behavior, improve follow-through and overall compliance, offer management solutions for more creative and appropriate consequences, offer diagnostic and proactive components, create increased deterrence in numerous ways, and so much more.

Rather than being primarily a data collection and reporting tool like the SIS and SMS systems tend to be, true discipline (software) tools go beyond that facade of effectiveness to being truly instrumental tools that can improve the discipline climate on any campus, regardless of their current relative effectiveness.

I will further develop this distinction in coming posts by elaborating on what discipline (software) tools that are not mere facades should do.  EdClick's Discipline Manager was developed from in the trenches, by school administrators, to make doing the job (not mere reporting) more effective and less burdensome with much improved outcomes.