District leaders told the board that overall discipline remains concentrated in a small share of students but identified modest increases in some categories and described interventions to reduce incidents.

Doctor Cynthia Guna, presenting discipline data, said office discipline referrals and out‑of‑school suspensions showed “minor reductions” year over year overall, but in‑school suspensions rose slightly. Comparing August–September 2024 with the same months in 2025, the district recorded reduced bullying and gang activity but small increases in weapons incidents (mostly knives and small blades), fighting and drug incidents. Guna said there were no reports of firearms.

Doctor Melvin Blocker, head of the department, said about 95% of scholars have no referrals; the district is concentrating supports on roughly 5% who have repeated incidents. Strategies include behavior correction action plans for tier‑2 students, behavior intervention plans for tier‑3 students, small‑group restorative practices, conflict resolution lessons and escalation protocols. Blocker said the district will intensify supports via 20 Behavior Intervention Specialists, each assigned to roughly 3–4 schools (larger high schools have fewer schools per specialist).

Blocker also described a new Level Up mentorship pilot at Jonesboro Middle School targeting about 100 sixth graders. He told the board the pilot is preventive, aimed at new middle‑school students to reduce later discipline problems. The district will continue intensive services at the alternative school, including two behavior specialists, school psychologists and social workers; students in the alternative program must meet academic and behavioral exit criteria before returning to home schools.

Board members asked for more granular metrics. Several members requested a dashboard tying discipline counts to academic performance, and a breakdown of how many students each behavior specialist serves. Blocker said the department will provide school‑level numbers and suggested the board use those data during budget planning.

The presentation included questions about the CAB (Caring Adult in the Building) program; Blocker said the goal is one caring adult per student, but the district had not yet reached that target and continues to log progress in Infinite Campus.

No formal board action was taken; the board asked staff to provide more detailed reports and metrics in future sessions.