Notre Dame researcher: teacher supports, leadership and bias shape discipline gaps in Indiana and South Bend

Dr. Patrick Graff, a sociologist affiliated with the University of Notre Dame, presented research to the South Bend Community School Corp showing that discipline disparities arise from multiple sources — including outside-school factors such as poverty and lead exposure and within-school factors such as teacher supports, principal leadership and racial bias.

Graff reviewed state and national datasets and said that, in Indiana elementary-school data, roughly one in six Black students receive exclusionary discipline (in-school suspension, out-of-school suspension, expulsion) in a given year. He said relative rates comparing Black and white students in recent federal data (2021–22) hover around 2.8–3.1 times higher for Black students — a pattern consistent with national averages. Graff emphasized that the disparity is particularly visible in early grades because exclusions are rarer at that age, so a small number of incidents can produce large relative gaps.

Based on multiple published papers and his dissertation work, Graff recommended three district levers: prioritize supports for new and early-career teachers (mentoring and coaching), strengthen principal leadership to ensure consistent implementation of disciplinary policy, and use descriptive data analyses to identify "hot spots" where a small number of teachers or classrooms account for a disproportionate share of referrals. He also recommended examining teacher assignment patterns, teacher pipelines and retention as part of a systemic approach.

Graff cautioned that many drivers of behavior lie outside schools and urged the district to use data to target feasible within-school interventions rather than treat the issue as a single-cause problem. He directed attendees to published papers for further reading and encouraged the district to build on existing research while tailoring analyses to South Bend's context.