The Clarke County Board of Education on May 8 reviewed and then advanced for approval a revised student code of conduct for the 2025–26 school year, after administrators expanded a presentation to include behavior data, the district’s use of the ‘Spotlight’ tracking tool and its restorative-practices work.

District staff member Miss Barbizon presented additional slides requested at the April meeting and included snapshots of behavior incidents, OSS and ISS days and school-climate ratings. She said the district had seen decreases in OSS and ISS days and noted “we did see a substantial gain in the DOE star climate ratings across the board” when summarizing the data.

The presentation clarified Spotlight, the district’s Infinite Campus module for recording minor classroom-managed infractions. Director of Behavior Support and Discipline Mr. Cobb explained that Spotlight entries are intended to support MTSS tier 2 and tier 3 intervention planning and “do not become a part of the student's cumulative records, like state reportable incidents.” Barbizon and Cobb emphasized the system is also used to document positive behavior and to guide interventions that keep incidents at the classroom level when possible.

The district described progressive-discipline language that appears in the code on page 4 and noted state requirements to communicate progressive discipline to parents. Staff highlighted ongoing restorative-practices training with the Georgia Conflict Center (year two) and said a base curriculum alternative to in-school suspension will be provided to secondary schools next year as part of a broader effort to reduce exclusionary discipline.

Board members asked questions about Spotlight data, the relationship between minors and state-reportable incidents, special-education funding, distribution of the full code document and whether parents must acknowledge receipt. Barbizon said the code is distributed via a QR-code card to K–12 families; printed copies are available on request and parents are required to sign an acknowledgement. On severity levels, Barbizon said those levels are set by the state and schools must use due-process procedures when assigning levels.

After discussion, the board moved the document to the regular meeting for a vote and later approved the code of conduct at that meeting. Several board members said they supported the code while urging stronger connections between the code’s language and the district’s training and coaching for classroom staff.

Why it matters: The student code of conduct defines what behaviors are state-reportable, explains progressive discipline to families and sets the district’s expectations for intervention, documentation and restorative practices. Changes affect discipline procedures, student records and the supports available to schools.

What’s next: The updated code will be distributed to families via QR code and made available in print on request. District leaders said they will continue restorative-practices training, provide an alternate secondary curriculum for in-school suspension and use Spotlight data to target coaching and supports.