Fix School Discipline Toolkit for Educators | Page 84

ALTERNATIVES INCREASE
SCHOOL FUNDING
There is another practical reason to adopt a researchbased alternative. These alternatives increase
school funding because they result in higher student
attendance and lower suspension rates. Schools
implementing alternative strategies, such as SWPBIS,
have shown that minimal or negligible upfront costs
for implementation result in great benefits, including
cost savings and funding increases, over time, as
attendance and achievement rates improve and outof-school suspensions decrease.

1. Pioneer High School in Woodland
School staff and parents implementing SWPBIS for
more than three years reported increased funding of
$97,200 in the first year of implementation.
Average Daily Attendance (ADA) is up:
• 30 more students attending daily, based on
95.46% for 2011-12 school year, up from 93.52%
the previous year
• ADA funds received = $97,200/year ($18/
student/day)
Suspensions are down:

• 65% reduction in suspensions: 2.2 days of

suspension assigned per day of school in 20112012 school year to date, down from 6.3 days in
the prior year

• This constitutes $13,284 of the $97,200 ADA
cost savings

Garfield High School

School staff and parents have been implementing
SWPBIS since the 2009-10 school year and, in one
year, implementation resulted in increased funding of
$363,216.1
Average Daily Attendance (ADA) is up:
• 69 more students attending daily, based on
94.68% ADA for 2010-11 school year, up from
92.32% prior to implementation

• ADA funding increase = $363,216/year
Suspensions are down:

• Suspensions virtually eliminated: Only one
suspension in 2010-2011 school year, down
from 510 suspensions in the year prior to
implementation

• This reduction constitutes $14,769 of the
$363,216 ADA funding increase

School costs were negligible
to non-existent and district costs were
relatively small
A team of administrators and teachers attended
district training on implementing SWPBIS under Los
Angeles Unified School District’s discipline policy. 
Using existing staff, the team trained the rest of the
staff and implemented SWPBIS with no additional
funding.  

Academic Performance is up:
720 API score in 2010-11, a gain of 48 points from
the prior year; 741 API 2011-2012, a gain of 21
points
Start-up costs were minimal and finite
To obtain these results, Pioneer High used $30,000
in 2009-10 and $40,000 in 2010-11. Because Pioneer
High built capacity among its existing staff, it
anticipates no additional expenditures moving
forward.

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How we can fix school discipline

1 Estimated cost savings are based on $30.08/day lost for each suspension averted, by comparing actual number of suspensions in 2010-11 with
expected number of suspensions if suspension rate remained the same as
in 2008-09.