As reported by MyEasternShoreMd, at its June meeting, the Queen Anne’s County Board of Education approved changes to the Queen Anne’s County Public Schools student discipline policy that will put an end to zero-tolerance policies and automatic suspensions and be formally implemented in time for the new school year.

Called the common sense discipline approach, the policy “reflects a rehabilitative discipline policy with the goals of fostering, teaching and acknowledging positive behavior,” according to the policy statement, and says teaching appropriate school behavior is the shared responsibility of the entire school community.

Under the revised policy a short-term suspension will change from one to 10 days to one to three days; a long-term suspension will change from 11 to 45 days to four to 10 days; and an extended suspension will change from over 45 days to over 10 days.

Principals will use long-term out-of-school- suspensions as a last resort to keep students in school to continue their education program uninterrupted.

For more information, see the full story from MyEasternShoreMd. For information about the State Board’s disciplinary regulations, see our previous post on Conduit Street, Local School Boards React to State’s New School Discipline Regs.