District staff explain SSDR coding and reporting; committee moves to executive session to review confidential charts

District staff provided a technical briefing on school safety and discipline reporting (SSDR) and how incident data flows from building-level entries to state reports.

Dr. Perkins began by clarifying key terms: an "incident" may include one or more "offenses," and disciplinary actions range from letters of apology to in-building or out-of-school suspension. Mr. Marani described the Aspen entry workflow: building administrators (principals, assistant principals or deans) record incidents and select offense codes; Aspen transmits nightly to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), and DESE data is surfaced in Edwin Analytics for public and internal reports.

Staff emphasized two reporting points: certain offenses are reportable by statute regardless of disciplinary action (for example, some categories such as bullying), while other entries only become reportable when they result in a loss of instructional time (e.g., suspensions). They also noted coding variation across schools and said the district is working to standardize how principals select offense codes.

Committee members asked whether principals have discretion over coding, how repeated bullying incidents are logged (one incident vs. multiple incidents), whether out-of-school incidents subject to court processes affect school participation, and whether restorative practices create mismatches in public reports. Staff replied that discretion exists for code selection, the district is working to align practices, and that some DESE reports are public while others are confidential and require executive-session review.

Following the presentation and questions, Mayor Coke moved the committee into executive session to discuss SSDR statistics and review confidential charts; the motion passed on roll call and the committee did not return to open session.