Manage Discipline Codes

To use Discipline Plus, you must first set up the codes used to track disciplinary incidents. The topics below provide an overview of the codes and instructions for setting them up. 

Discipline Codes Overview

Before you can begin tracking student behavior in your school, you must set up your discipline codes based on your school's policies on student conduct. Discipline Plus uses five types of discipline codes, which are described in the table below.

Because some of the discipline codes are linked, you must set them up in the order shown in the table.

How Discipline Codes Work

To get a better understanding of how discipline codes work, let's assume a teacher is submitting a disciplinary incident from their portal. This is the first time the student has committed any infraction. The teacher enters the infraction code for disrupting class. Because this is the first time the student has committed this infraction, Discipline Plus adds the default action for the first occurrence ("Detention for 1 Hour") to the incident form. The teacher completes the form, optionally adding location codes and comments, and submits it.

In Discipline Plus, you receive the incident from the holding bin. When you save the incident to the student's discipline record, Discipline Plus adds 1 to the student's Detention totals. Once the incident is saved, you can edit the incident as needed.

You can also add incidents to a student's record manually.
When you generate a detention attendance form listing students with outstanding penalties for detention, the student appears on the form. When the student serves detention and the appropriate served code (Detention Served: 1 Hour) is entered for the student (either manually or using Fast Served), Discipline Plus subtracts the served code penalty amount of 1 from the student's outstanding Detention totals.

Add Penalty Codes to the Penalty List

Penalties describe the different types (or broad categories) of actions taken in response to an infraction. When setting up your discipline data, define your penalties first. Then, when you create your actions, you can link them to the appropriate penalties. You can define up to eight penalties, including penalties for state reporting purposes.

Since you generate attendance forms based on penalties, create penalty categories broad enough to cover all actions used by your school.

1. On the Shortcut bar, click Discipline, and then click Codes.
2. On the Penalty list tab, click Add [F2] to move to the first unused record in the list.
3. Type an abbreviated code for the penalty.

   Codes can be alphanumeric, but must start with a letter and be no longer than four characters.

4. Type a description for the penalty using up to 40 characters.
5. Click Accept [F10] to save the code.
   

Add Action Codes to the Action List

After you define your penalties, you create the actions that describe how students in your school serve those penalties. The actions you create reflect the actions your administration takes for student infractions. You can define up to 250 actions.

1. On the Shortcut bar, click Discipline, and then click Codes.
2. Click the Action list  tab.
3. Click Add [F2] to move to the first unused record in the list.
4. In Code, type an abbreviated code for the action.

   Codes can be alphanumeric, but must start with a letter and be no longer than four characters.

See the figure and table below for the remaining options.

Add Infraction Codes to the Infraction List

With your penalties and actions added, you can start editing and/or adding your infractions. Infractions describe violations of your school's policies. Discipline Plus provides several default infractions which are linked to default actions. You can edit or delete the default infractions, and you can create your own. Your infraction list can contain up to 250 infractions.

Tip: Although optional, linking actions to your infractions increases efficiency and enforces fairness when disciplining students. Discipline Plus enters the appropriate actions (by occurrence) when you or another staff member enters an infraction. You can override default actions when adding or editing an incident.

1. On the Shortcut bar, click Discipline, and then click Codes.
2. Click the Infraction list tab.
3. Click Add [F2] to move to the first unused record in the list.
4. In Code, type an abbreviated code for the infraction.

See the figure and table below for the remaining options.

Add Served Codes to the Served List

After you finish adding your infraction codes, you can add served codes, which specify the amount of time served for an infraction. You can add up to 250 served codes.

1. On the Shortcut bar, click Discipline, and then click Codes.
2. Click the Served list tab.
3. Click Add [F2] to move to the first unused record in the list.
4. In Code, type an abbreviated code for the served code.
   Note: Codes can be alphanumeric, but must start with a letter and be no longer than four characters.

Although served codes should reflect how students in your school serve penalties, your served codes don't necessarily need to match your action list. For example, you might create an action called "Detention for 5 hours (DET5)"; but because your students never serve five hours of detention at one time, you wouldn't create a five-hour detention served code.

See the figure and table below for the remaining options:

Add Location Codes to the Location List

After adding served codes, you can add location codes to describe where and when infractions occur in your school. You can add up to 250 location codes.

You can create a location code called "Boys second floor restroom" and one called "Before school". When submitting a disciplinary incident, you can add both codes to describe where and when the incident occurred.

Location codes are optional; however, if your staff consistently enters location codes when submitting incident reports, you can use the information to generate a statistical report that shows the areas of your school and times of day that may require more supervision. See Statistical Reports.

1. On the Shortcut bar, click Discipline, and then click Codes.
2. Click the Location list  tab.
3. Click Add [F2]  to move to the first unused record in the list.
4. In Code, type an abbreviated code for the location.

   Codes can be alphanumeric, but must start with a letter and be no longer than four characters.

See the figure and table below for the remaining options:

Make Minor Edits to Discipline Codes

You can make minor edits to discipline codes, such as changing a code abbreviation from "MERT" to "MER" or fixing a typographical error in a description. However, avoid making major changes to codes, especially penalty or action codes, that are already being used in the active school year. Major changes include deleting codes (either by removing them or renaming them) or changing their record numbers.

Changing penalty or action codes used in the active school year, or linked to data in the active school year, will negatively affect your data. Incidents and actions are linked to penalty codes by record number. When you edit a penalty code or its record number, all incidents and actions linked to that code also change.

For example, if you change penalty record #1 from Detention (DET) to Internal Suspension (ISUS), students previously owing 10 detentions will owe 10 internal suspensions.

1. On the Shortcut bar, click Discipline and then Codes.
   The View, Edit or Print Penalty List dialog box opens.
   
2. Click the tab for the type of code you want to edit.
3. Scroll down the list to find the code and double-click it, or click Lookup [F6]to select a code from the list.

   You can browse codes by clicking or by typing a code record number in To search, begin typing the Record #. Click a column heading to sort items in that column.

   
   

   Changing penalty or action codes used in, or linked to data in, the active school year will negatively affect your data. Use caution when making changes to discipline codes used in the active school year.

4. Make any necessary minor edits, being careful not to change record numbers or delete codes.
5. Click Accept [F10]to save your changes.

   If you don't see your changes, click Exit [Esc] to close and reopen the dialog box.

Delete Discipline Codes

Although you can delete discipline codes, you should do so with caution.

Deleting discipline codes used in the active school year, or linked to data in the active school year, will negatively affect your data. Use caution when deleting discipline codes.

Follow these rules when deleting codes:

• You can delete a code you have not used in the active school year.
• You can delete a code if your school does not transfer discipline data from the previous year to the active school year. Transferring data from the previous year to the active school year links data from the previous year to data in the current year.

1. On the Shortcut bar, click Discipline  and then Codes.
2. In the View, Edit or Print Penalty List dialog box, click the tab for the code you want to delete.
   

   You can browse codes by clicking or by typing a code record number in To search, begin typing the Record #. Click a column heading to sort items in that column.

   Deleting discipline codes used in, or linked to data in, the active school year will negatively affect your data. Use caution when deleting discipline codes.

3. Do one of the following:
   • To delete one code, scroll down the list to find and click the code, and then click Delete [F8]. Click Yes to confirm the deletion.
   • To delete every code in the list, press Shift + F8. Click Yes to confirm the deletions.

Create Custom Categories of Discipline Data

You can create tables to store discipline data that doesn't fit the default data types, or to store sensitive data you want excluded from reports and letters. You can also create tables to store special discipline codes and other information required for state reporting (such as information on suspended or expelled students). These tables are similar to super data base tables.

Each category of data appears as a separate line item in the Viewing One Incident  dialog box. When you click a category, the data fields display in the panel on the right.

Discipline Plus provides a default victim data table that contains a name and a remarks field. You can add fields to the table as needed.

To create a table for a category of data, follow these steps:

1. On the Shortcut bar, click Discipline, and then click Codes.
2. Click Setup User Defined Discipline Category Table.
   

   Setup User Defined Discipline Category Table appears on all the tabs in the View, Edit or Print Penalty List dialog box.

3. Click Add Table.
   

4. See the figure and table below for descriptions of the options used to create a table and add fields to it.
   

   User-Defined Discipline Category Table Options
   A	Type a name and a description for the table you're creating.
   B	Click the letter you want to display as the table shortcut in the Viewing One Incident dialog box. Note: You can only select letters not already used for default data or other user-defined tables.
   C	To add a field to the table, click the first row and type a name for the field.
   D	Click Type and select one of the following types of data to be entered in the field: Text: Enter text in any format. Integer: Enter whole numbers. Decimal: Enter numbers with a decimal point. Date: Enter dates in mm-dd-yyyy format, or any date format chosen for Administrator's Plus. Note: Enter characters in any format and length.
   E	Type the maximum number of characters allowed for the field.
   F	Click Required, and click Optional  if the field can be left blank, or Mandatory  if the field requires an entry.
   G	If Text  is the data type, click Case  to select how data in the field displays: Leave as Is: Applies no formatting to the entry. Sentence Case: Capitalizes the first word of the entry and leaves the remaining words lowercase. Lower Case: Converts all words in the entry to lowercase. Upper Case: Converts all words in the entry to uppercase. Title Case: Capitalizes the first letter of each word in the entry.
   H	Click Validation, and in the drop-down list, click one of the following: Click Not Validated  if you want no restrictions on who can enter data or how data is entered. Click Anyone if you want no restrictions on who can enter data. Click any of the remaining options to restrict data entry to a specific user.
   I	Click Item Order, and click a number to order the field in the list.
   J	If you want each entry in the field to automatically populate with the same value, type that value in Default Value.
   K	To create a list of options for users to select from when entering data in the field, click Setup Validation [F6]  and follow these steps: Tip: Creating a list of options ensures data is always entered the same way. In the Setup Validation dialog box, click Add [F2]. Type a name for the first option, and then click Accept [F10]. Repeat the previous step as needed to add the remaining options. Click Done to save your settings. Tip: In the Setup Validation dialog box, you can leave options in the order you created them, you can list options alphabetically in ascending or descending order, or you can click the arrows on the right to move a selected option up or down in the list. If you're not sure what options to include in the list, click Generate [F5] to generate a list of entries currently used for this field.

5. Click Save [F10].
6. To add another field, click Add [F2].
   To edit a field, highlight it and click Edit [F3]. To delete a field, highlight it and click Delete [F8].
7. When you're finished, click Save [F10], and then click Done [F10].