As for rules, it’s really just the basics that we’ve always had in school. If you have to pick one thing for all of the kids to pay attention to, it’s respect. There are several ways to show respect, and if the kids are focused on respecting one another, you, and themselves, they won’t cause you any huge problems.

As for consequences, it can really be different for every student. I do a lot of one-on-one conversations about behaviors. If that fails with a student, I get a bit more severe by using my school’s hierarchy of discipline. I will admit, there are times when the consequences for one student are nothing like the consequences for another student based on whether or not I’ve had problems with the student in the past. I’ll never punish a student more strictly because of their behavior, but I may punish a student less than the hierarchy prescribes simply because that isn’t a normal behavior from that student. My first year was a very tough year, and there were several times when a student openly swore during class and received a detention or office referral based on the offense, but there was a case of one of my star students lashing back at a classmate by yelling “You’re starting to f***ing p*** me off!” She had never once caused me a problem that year and I was stunned to hear what she had said. I called her out of the room and discussed it with her – how her classmate had annoyed her and how her reaction was inappropriate for the classroom. She was very apologetic and knew that her response was inappropriate. Rather than write an office referral like I’m sure that I had for another student that year, I sent her to the guidance office for a few minutes to cool down before coming back to class. She never gave me any more problems, and I’m certain that this was handled as well as it could have been handled.

The bottom line for consequences is this: set up a plan for how you are going to handle problems in the classroom and follow it based on the circumstances. If it’s a case of a kid that is usally a pain in the neck, follow it strictly. If it’s a kid that doesn’t give you hassle every day, take it easy on the kid – they’ll appreciate it and respect you more in the long run. My plan works like this:

1st offense – verbal correction

2nd offense – conference outside with student

3rd offense – time out of the room

4th offense – call home

5th offense – office referral

Just a note, my state’s wellness policy doesn’t allow us to detain students during lunch time, so detention isn’t an option. Also, sometimes that 4th offense is a great time to have the student call home and explain to his/her parent what they did to warrant a call home – it embarasses the hell out of them in front of their classmates and gets their parents nice and upset that they had to get a call during the middle of the day – this is incredibly effective. As usual, extreme circumstances call for skipping a few steps in the hierarchy – if a kid punches a kid or does something to injure another student, they don’t need four chances – they’re going to the office.

All in all, it really comes down to you knowing your students and what will work for them. I would suggest sticking to a plan of action rigidly for the first several weeks of school and then when you know which kids are repeat offenders and which aren’t, you’ll know how to deal with them individually. Heck, sometimes it just comes down to letting a kid know that he’s acting like a yutz and he’ll cut the proverbial crap.

Most of the rules consist of things like:

Raise your hand to speak.

Keep hands, feet, and other objects to yourself

Use your own supplies; No lending or borrowing.

Rude comments stay outside and to yourself.

I always put Have fun! on the list because school should be fun.

I would also have them come up with consequences. If they do this activity, they own the rules and consequences and are more likely to behave.