Embracing The Messy

Adam H. Frank, PhD, principal at Palmer Ridge High School in Monument, Colorado, provides consulting, speaking, and professional development services specializing in school discipline, legal practices, student-centered engagement, leadership development, and change theory. Show Highlights Reading the signs when your staff goes "BIG." Discipline done well is a loving process with these practical strategies. Leaders need to get comfortable "embracing the messy" for productivity. Edgy topics around the concept of discipline. Forming groups vs committees. Systems thinking structures around challenging ideas and criticism to make the ideas better. Establish routines instead of rules within a real world liability and expectations for parents and students. "Restorative practices, restorative justice, it seems to never talk about how to do the discipline when discipline must be involved. And so if you can avoid discipline by good routines, good relationships, that's the ideal. But when a bad choice has been made, how do you interact with that kid? What do you do? Restorative justice talks about circles and restoring the relationship after the bad decision has been made, but in a real...