The district's board of trustees adopted the changes to the code of conduct Aug. 14.
Some context
According to the district, the code of conduct guiding standards for student behavior is reviewed and revised as needed each year.
Students have access to physical and online copies of the student code of conduct at the start of each year, or upon enrollment into the district, district documents state.
This session, RRISD General Counsel Cindy Hill said, was "busy," with much of legislation targeting public education.
What changed?
The changes to the code of conduct approved by trustees in August include but are not limited to:
- Updates to policies guiding student device use, requiring any device capable of two-way communication to be turned off and out of sight for the duration of the school day.
- Amendments to mandates from the 2023 legislative session to send students to a disciplinary alternative education program, or DAEP, for e-cigarette and vaping-related offenses allowing the district to choose between DAEP or in-school suspension.
- Teachers can remove disruptive students from the classroom after one instance, with an updated procedure for reintroducing them back into the classroom.
- Removing the cap on the number of days students can spend in in-school suspension. Students can still only be given three days of out-of-school suspension per offense.
- Language guiding the use of student preferred names or nicknames with parent permission was also included in the new code of conduct.
