Tucson Standard

The Tucson Unified School District approved a new student code of conduct to address truancy and student safety for the upcoming school year at the board's June 13 meeting. 

The TUSD had received several requests to update and improve the code of conduct, which was last updated in 2019. Superintendent Gabriel Trujillo said several requests came from the teachers’ union and instructors in the district, who asked that the code better reflect the challenges faced by modern students.

“We want a classroom environment where learning is the predominant activity, not discipline," Trujillo said, "not classroom interruptions and disruptions, not putting the teacher in the role of enforcer or security monitor or counselor. We want to be able to return the authority and the respect that our principals and our teachers really need to keep safe classrooms. And it's not about displacing students.”

Trujillo said the city had placed “emphasis on restorative practices, restorative conferences, (and) interventions,” but created stricter guidelines for repeated offenses and relieved teachers of being the primary decision-makers in such cases. Trujillo added that this effort parallels the $480 million bond the board was putting on the November 2023 ballot to improve the physical safety and quality of school buildings, adding, “We want the next two years for Tucson employees and students and parents to be so much better than the last three.”

Anna Schwartz Warmbrand, TUSD’s Director of Student Services, gave the board an overview of the changes, saying an in-depth review of all changes and protocols was presented to the public earlier in the week. She touched on the final pieces of feedback they took from that community meeting, saying almost 9,650 stakeholders, more than 1,800 of whom were students from the district, had replied.

The new code includes clearer definitions of defiance and disrespect, common offenses teachers experience in their classrooms, the board said. It also begins a new progressive model, which looks back on a student's history of behavior and can impose harsher punishments according to how often a student has committed similar offenses, Warmbrad said. All students do get a clean slate with each new school level. For example, a student entering middle school is no longer judged by any of their offenses during elementary school, Warmbrand added.