Superintendent: Out-of-school suspensions down; vaping and restorative practices remain focal points

The Ballston Spa Central School District superintendent presented a three-year breakdown of student-discipline outcomes and said out-of-school suspensions and superintendent hearings have declined while vaping remains a persistent problem.

The superintendent told the Board of Education the district uses progressive discipline unless an offense is egregious, and emphasized accurate documentation through the district's electronic referral system. “Progressive discipline is our practice, you know, unless the offense is egregious,” the superintendent said.

The presentation, based on data compiled by Chief Information Officer Margaret Giller, focused on final dispositions — how individual disciplinary incidents were closed — rather than raw referral counts, which the superintendent warned can be skewed by changes in reporting.

The superintendent summarized K–12 trends showing out-of-school suspensions dropped from 403 (earlier year) to 335 and then to 207 in the most recent year. Superintendent's hearings fell from 25 to 21 to 17 over the same three-year…