Examining School Discipline Patterns in Dallas ISD

During the Get-Tough Era, zero tolerance policies and school resource officers were implemented in schools all over the country (Beger, 2002). This led to lots of students being expelled, suspended, and/or arrested on campus (Fisher & Hennessey, 2016; Devlin & Gottfredson, 2016). More specifically, the students affected tend to be youth of color and those from low-income communities (Mendez et al., 2002; Mendez & Knoff, 2003). While there is a great deal of research confirming the disproportionate discipline and how it affects youth of color, there are few efforts to understand the concentration of hotspots in certain areas. This study attempts to fill that gap. Based on the findings presented, two conclusions are warranted: there are hotspots in school discipline within the Dallas Independent School district and there were no differences in demographic information collected from the U.S. Census Bureau when comparing hotspot and non-hotspot areas.