A Descriptive Study of Office Disciplinary Referrals in High Schools

The purpose of this paper is to share descriptive data about Office Discipline Referrals (ODRs) in a sample of 112 high schools that used the School-wide Information System (SWIS) database to collect discipline data during the 2005-2006 academic year.The findings were that tardies, defiance/disrespect and skip/truancy were the most common types of ODRs generated at the high school level. Those in the freshman class were the most likely of all students to receive an ODR, and the majority of those students who generated multiple referrals requiring intensive behavior supports (e.g., 6 or more ODRs), did so by mid-winter of the academic year.