The North Okanagan-Shuswap School District is trying to remedy the fact that some school suspensions aren’t working.
The school board has given first reading to a request to revise the healthy schools and workplaces policy as well as the drug and alcohol misuse regulation.
Superintendent Dave Witt told trustees that a district committee has spent several years researching why suspension practices aren’t working, and how they often end up with the students dropping out.
Witt says the committee has determined that purely punitive practices don’t result in behaviour change.
It also shows the drug and alcohol incidents referred for discipline are often a symptom of a greater issue in the student body, and the proposed revision supports identifying the deeper need.
