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Board discusses incentives, disincentives and responses to chronic disruptive behavior
Summary
Trustees and stakeholders debated how the district should balance positive incentives and disciplinary responses for students and staff, with speakers calling for clearer, consistently implemented behavior frameworks, more counselors and campus monitors, and alternatives for persistently disruptive students.
Spectrum Board members and stakeholders used the April 10 roundtable to examine how incentives and disincentives operate on campuses and how responses affect staff willingness to intervene. Superintendent Glenn Vander and other participants framed incentives as supports that encourage positive behavior and disincentives as measures intended to discourage harmful actions.
Teacher Thomas Brittendahl described disincentives as familiar consequences and cited detention as an example: “disincentive is something as simple as a detention.” He and other speakers said staff sometimes hesitate to intervene when prior reports produce no apparent consequence, creating a deterrent effect for adults doing supervision. Several speakers urged revisiting the district’s Uniform Behavior Response framework to ensure consistent consequences and supports across sites.
Discussion focused on supports requested in stakeholder feedback: more counselors and social workers, stronger campus monitoring for safety and climate, and clearer, consistently applied grading and behavior practices. Board members and staff stressed that disciplinary measures should be designed to change behavior, not punish for its own sake. Trustee Patty Cortesi said involuntary transfers or other placement changes should be framed as matching a student to a setting that better meets their needs, not as punishment.
Several participants recommended better use of alternative placement options for students whose behaviors are persistently disruptive, including continuation programs, community partners and re‑engagement models. Trustee Thomas and others cited San Jose Conservation Corps as a local program that can offer different instructional settings for some students. No new disciplinary policy was adopted; participants asked administrators to bring data from LCAP public hearings and site reports to inform possible recalibration of behavior responses.
