Dashboard Metrics
All Discipline Incidents
Background
District Dashboard Metrics
To enable educators to promptly identify and respond to incidences of student misbehavior, many school districts across the country, including Charlotte, Chicago and Dallas, have incorporated measures of student discipline into their internal performance management dashboards. In focus groups conducted with over 2,600 educators throughout Texas, the Discipline Referrals metric was considered useful by 97% of those surveyed.
Primary Metric
- All Discipline Incidents: percentage of students with one or more discipline incidents outside of the school code of conduct and excessive (more than 5) school code of conduct incidents within a given grading period, reported for the current grading period and year to date.
User Interface
Dashboard Example
Figure 1 shows the All Discipline Incidents metric as seen on the dashboard.
Figure 1 TSDS District All Discipline Incidents Metric
Status Definition
This metric displays the percentage of students with more serious and/or repeat discipline incidents over three grading periods: Current Grading Period to date and school Year to Date. These incidents are defined as follows:
- One or more discipline incidents representing the most serious incidents, excluding School Code of Conduct, Or
- Students with repeat occurrences (five or more) of discipline incidents representing minor infractions (which are defined in the state of Texas accountability system as ‘School Code of Conduct’)
The Status indicator is determined by campus-specific thresholds (campus goals) which are set at the district level. The TSDS default threshold for each grading period and year to date is 5%.
Table 2 lists the status indicators and trend comparisons as seen on the district dashboard.
Metric Indicator | Comparisons | |||
Metric Name | Sub-metric Name | Metric Status Indicator | Trend | Campus Attainment |
All Discipline Incidents | Current Grading | Red (Percentage) = if percentage of students with discipline incidents is greater than or equal to district goal Green (Percentage) = if percentage of students with discipline incidents is less than district goal | Trend is not shown for the current grading period | The number of campuses meeting their campus goal |
Year to Date | Red (Percentage) = if percentage of students with discipline incidents is greater than or equal to district goal Green (Percentage) = if percentage of students with discipline incidents is less than district goal | Trend is not shown for the year to date | The number of campuses meeting their campus goal | |
(a) The Value column displays the number of students with discipline incidents out of the total number of students in the district.
Trends
Currently the dashboards do not support trends for this district metric. The UI supports trends, but the ETL packages have not been developed.
Trend Definition
Trend Indicators: Objective is to indicate All Discipline Incidents | |||
| Up green | If the value for the current time frame is more than 5 percentage points higher than the prior time frame, then display a gray arrow trending upward. | |
| Unchanged | If the value for the current time frame is less than or equal to 5 percentage points higher or less than or equal to 5 percentage points lower than the prior time frame, then display two gray arrows pointing outward indicating no direction. | |
| Down red | If the value for the current time frame is more than 5 percentage points lower than the prior time frame, then display a gray arrow trending downward. | |
The trend does not show for the first occurrence of a time frame since data is not available.
Delta Definition
The delta appears only in the campus list and displays the individual campus goals rather than the district goal. Table 4 defines the Delta indicators for the All Discipline Incidents metric.
Delta Indicators: Objective is to indicate All Discipline Incidents Rate | |||
Metric Name | Sub-Metric Name | Campus Goal | Delta |
All Discipline Incidents | Current Grading Period | Set campus goal | Red (Percentage) = if the calculated delta is equal to or greater than the campus goal Black( Percentage) = if the calculated delta is less than the campus goal |
Year to Date | Set campus goal | Red (Percentage) = if the calculated delta is equal to or greater than the campus goal Black (Percentage) = if the calculated delta is less than the campus goal | |
Periodicity
To enable viewing of this metric as a leading indicator, the data must be updated and loaded frequently, at least weekly, though there is still some benefit from loading monthly.
Table 5 Recommended Load Characteristics for
aTSDS All Discipline Incidents Metric
Recommended Load Characteristics | |
Calendar | Weekly, Monthly |
Frequency of data load | Weekly |
Latency | 2-4 weeks |
Interchange schema | Interchange-StudentDiscipline.xsd |
Tooltips
The standard tool tips for the metric definition, column headers, and help functions display for this metric.
- Green metric status: OK
- Red metric status: HIGH
- 'More' indicates drill down views for this metric
is ‘No change from the prior period'
is ‘Getting worse from the prior period’
is 'Getting better from the prior period'
Business Rules
The discipline metrics indicate the level and type of discipline incidents taking place in a district over various time periods. Districts and states vary in how discipline incidents and actions are categorized. The following rules apply to the state of Texas and the TSDS dashboard tools.
The All Discipline Incidents metric displays the percentage of students who meet the following criteria:
- One or more discipline incidents in the time period representing the most serious incidents (in the case of Texas, this is defined as all non-school code of conduct incidents) where the student is identified as a “Perpetrator” (i.e., a student who committed the discipline incident); Or
- Five or more discipline incidents in the time period representing minor infractions (in the case of Texas, this is defined as School Code of Conduct incidents) where the student is identified as a “Perpetrator.”
Discipline incidents are counted, regardless of whether a discipline action has resulted.
This metric displays the student discipline incident rate for the following grading periods:
- Current Grading Period to date
- Year to Date
The length of the grading period is configurable and is defined by the district—typically either 6 or 9 weeks.
Data Assumptions
- The campus must record discipline incidents and actions and categorize them by type.
- While state or district regulations may require certain actions for certain types of incidents, TSDS does not validate these rules, but rather displays what is recorded.
- Transfer (late enrollment) students may not have a complete history of discipline referrals for the current school year.
Computed Values
The cohort is the set of all current students over all grades at the campus, at the time of the last upload. Students who are not enrolled at the time of the last upload are excluded from the cohort.
Table 6 defines how values are calculated for each time period. The result of the calculation displays in the Status column on the dashboard.
Metric | Calculation | Excluded students |
All Discipline Incidents | Number of current students with one or more incident types coded as "serious" or 5 or more minor infractions * 100 / all current students in the cohort | Students who are not enrolled at the time of the last upload |
Data Anomalies
Date of Refresh
Best practice is for the date of last data refresh to appear next the metric in the following format:
- (Through April 2010)
Implementation Considerations
Late Enrollments
For late enrollment students, the full history of discipline referrals may not be available, resulting in an understatement of the metric.
Frequency of Uploading Data
The metric computation implementation may vary depending on the periodicity of loading the data. For example, a daily load requires that you load data for only a single day (i.e., the last instruction day). Less frequent uploads require that you load data for each day since the date of the last load.
Classification of Incidents
The classification of incidents, particularly the most serious incidents, may be driven by state reporting requirements. Ideally a district incorporates both state and local classification of incidents—the CDM is extensible to enable a district to map additional classification types. Additionally, a developer can modify the definition to account for the specific number of incident types that are included in the calculation.
Thresholds
Best practice is to set the campus thresholds for each campus at the district level. A secure mechanism is required to allow the district to set and maintain those thresholds.
Indicator and Metric Definitions
In researching best practices across leading districts, discipline was identified as a leading indicator of course failure and dropping out. With respect to discipline incidents, one way to define this metric is by the number of discipline incidents within a given period. Other related ways districts measure this indicator include:
- Discipline Incidents: breakdown of all discipline incidents by type, i.e. misconduct, school safety incidents, etc.
- Discipline Incidents: percentage of students with at least one discipline incident.
- Discipline Incidents: total number of discipline incidents.
- School Safety Incidents: number of school safety incidents.
Drill Downs
Drill Down Views
The dashboards include the option to drill down and see more detail that is associated with a metric. Table 7 lists the drill down views that are recommended for this metric.
Table 7 Drill Down Views for All Discipline Incidents Metric
| Campus List | List of all campuses and the metric values and goals for the specified time frame. |