Living Above the Line

Living Above the Line is an approach to discipline at Arlington Middle School.  It's not just a system, but it's a way of thinking about student behavior.  It's taking a negative, poor decisions by students, and making it into a positive.  How?  By looking at student behavior as an opportunity to teach and therefore student discipline can be seen as an extension of character education.

The key components to "Living Above the Line" approach to student discipline are:
1. 10/90-Ten percent of life is outside of your control and 90% is inside your control (Stephen Covey).  Spend your time and energy where you can actually make an impact.
2.  Consequences-All actions have a consequence, good or bad. The best consequences are natural consequences but logical consequences have their place too.  Certainty over immediacy-something will happen is more important than that it will happen right now.
3.  Respondability-How you respond is more important than the initial action.
4.  See it, own it, solve it, do it-this is the way the student takes accountability for their actions and creates a plan to fix the problem.
5. Give it time-Frustration and anger will go away with time.
6. Educators should be role models of behavior.  Respectful responses are extremely important to any and all situations.