A correlative study of attendance and specific disciplinary actions in the secondary schools in Tennessee for the 1994-1995 school year

This study examined the practices of disciplinary actions in grades 7 through 12 in secondary schools in Tennessee for the school year 1994-1995 to determine if they constituted determinate or contributing factors to absenteeism when a relationship between variables such as in-school suspensions, out-of-school suspensions, expulsions, alternative school referrals, and juvenile court referrals by schools were considered. The population and sample group, one and the same, included the 366,529 students in grades 7 through 12 in Tennessee public secondary schools during the 1994-1995 school year. These numbers represented the 124 public school systems of the 95 counties in Tennessee. Data were received from the Tennessee Department of Education, Research and Statistics Department, Tennessee Department of Education, Auxiliary Programs Division, and the Tennessee Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges. The data were totaled for grades 7 through 12 and converted to average percentages prior to testing. The Pearson r correlation test determined the relationships between the variables. An individual regression analysis and a stepwise multiple regression analysis were done to observe the strength and/or weaknesses of these relationships. The findings of this study revealed that the only relationship between attendance and disciplinary actions was suspensions, and this was an insignificant relationship. The other disciplinary variables, in-school suspensions, expulsions, alternative school referrals, and court referrals by a school system had no effect on attendance. The results disclosed that the traditional methods of disciplining in secondary schools do not appear to influence attendance, which is one of the main concerns when discussing dropout rates. Recommendations included the further study of practices of attendance and discipline and for abandoning traditional methods of discipline for innovative measures that engender student success