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Board hears discipline report showing 6,063 referrals and calls to target 13 high-frequency students
Summary
Mr. Harper presented a discipline report showing 6,063 referrals involving 1,482 students, with 13 students receiving 20 or more referrals and one elementary student receiving 64; board members pressed for per-student ratios, action plans, and targeted supports.
The Fayette County Board of Education received a comprehensive discipline report on July 14 outlining school-by-school referrals, subgroup counts and recommended next steps to reduce repeat incidents.
"The county had 6,063 referrals with 1,482 students committing them," Mr. Harper told the board as he walked through the data. He said 13 students had 20 or more referrals and one elementary student had 64. Harper listed frequent referral types as disruptive or disrespectful conduct, skipping class, cell‑phone violations and physical fights without injury.
Harper summarized school-level trends: some schools showed decreases while others saw increases — for example, Mill and Trail High School had 575 referrals (a 16% increase) and Tokyo High School had 1,229 referrals (about a 25% increase). Oak Hill Middle recorded 1,301 referrals, roughly unchanged from last year. Harper also noted the district held 65 ratifications and executive sessions this year, five fewer than last year.
Board members focused on contextualizing raw counts. One board member urged staff to present per‑student ratios rather than aggregate numbers so the board could see whether increases were driven by enrollment shifts or concentrated among a small number of students. "The whole number or the quantity of actions doesn't always tell the whole story," a board member said.
Staff described interventions already under way: principals prepare school-level action plans, Oak Hill High is piloting an in‑school suspension teacher to make suspension an instructional moment rather than a permanent exclusion, and district staff are pursuing PBIS (Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports) and targeted programming for students with repeated referrals. Harper said the district will concentrate efforts on the 13 students with 20+ referrals and seek early supports such as IEP evaluation when appropriate.
The board asked for additional breakdowns by grade and unique‑student counts (to avoid double counting students who appear in multiple categories such as race, disability and economically disadvantaged), and staff agreed to provide grade-level and per‑student ratio reports.
