When you have 900+ children gathered together in a relatively small footprint, conflict is going to occur. This isn't notable to Hudson or any school district in the state, no matter the size. This is due primarily to the fact that each individual student that walks through our doors is unique. Further, they have not matured to the point where they can always regulate their emotions. Think about it. Each of those children come to school with different backgrounds. The family makeup may be different from their classmates. Belief systems may be different. The financial means of one family may be different from another. And in what has become a pretty polarized environment, even the political positions of families can be sources of conflict in schools.
Truth be told, that's the beauty of public education. Certainly our prime directive is teaching kids to read and consider a future beyond our walls. But the mission extends beyond that. We are also charged with helping all of our students learn how to work with one another. To understand that not everyone is the same as them. That differences are okay and that there is a right way and a wrong way to work out those differences. Perhaps that is why the word 'empathy' appears in our tagline this year.
Nevertheless, empathy is not a substitute for accountability. Unfortunately, whenever conflict occurs between students in schools, both the tormentor and the victim may leave the experience with the feeling that they were treated unjust. The tormentor may feel they were treated unfairly, thinking their consequence is far more extreme than it needed to be. The victim may feel unsafe, believing with sincerity the outcome should have resulted in sanctions much more severe than those administered.
From a public accountability standpoint, it may appear as though the school did nothing. In fact, it is not uncommon for parents and neighbors to claim that their child was the hurt at school and nothing was done about it. I have an honest question. How do you know? Sometimes a parent will call after the issue has been resolved wanting to know how the other student was 'punished'. Our response to these type of inquires is universal: We are unable to share with you what disciplinary sanctions may have been imposed due to student privacy protections. It truly saddens and frustrates me when this is somehow translated to 'The school didn't do anything'. Before I get to what the school does, I want to make crystal clear we are not hiding behind some obscure law. The law is very real and far from obscure. Most are aware of the healthcare laws that protect patient privacy in the country that are known as HIPPA. The educational equivalent is called FERPA. The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act is a federal law that protects the privacy of student education records and prohibits their disclosure without consent. Student records include a variety of artifacts including grades, test scores, and disciplinary actions taken.
Whenever a student discipline issue is addressed the student handbook is the guiding document used by administrators to not only investigate disciplinary issues and conflict among our students, it is also the primary source referenced when imposing disciplinary sanctions. If you wonder what consequences may be applied, I might suggest reviewing the section titled Student Rights and Responsibilities beginning on page 28. Our student handbook serves as the administrative regulations that are derived from board policy. For a comprehensive examination of our board approved discipline policies, please refer to the 500 series of our policy manual. The subsection titled 503 Student Discipline is where you'll want to focus your attention. For policies regarding bullying and harassment, please refer to policy 104 in our manual, which is our anti-bullying/anti-harassment policy.
I would like to zero in on a couple of specific policies and procedures to provide a bit of insight as to how these issues are handled in the district. First, is policy 503.8 and regulation 503.8R1, the policies that deal with discipline of students who make threats of violence or cause acts of violence. These policies are relatively new to our manual and were first adopted by the board in November of 2023 and then reviewed again in September of 2024. They provide a roadmap for administrators to follow when dealing with this specific type of incident. When a report is made, the principal investigates the issue. This includes interviewing any witnesses to the behavior, collecting any evidence that may be available, conducting a threat assessment, and contacting all the parents of the parties involved. This can take as little as a few hours or multiple days depending on the complexity and severity of the incident. Once the investigation is completed, the administrator assigns it a level of severity from 1-3 with a level 3 incident being the most egregious. Because of the fact determining the level of severity is a judgement call requiring a subjective eye, it is not uncommon for administrators to collaborate with one another to ensure they are assigning the appropriate level. However, the regulation provides a rubric which is incredibly helpful when making these determinations. Furthermore, we continually calibrate our responses based on precedent, community norms, and updates to the guidance from our governing bodies. Once the incident level has been assigned, discipline is administered in accordance to grade band and [incident] level. In other words, a level one incident at kindergarten will be handled differently than it would be in the seventh grade.
It is also possible student disciplinary incidents span multiple policy violations. For example, in the above mentioned example, it is also possible, and in many cases likely a student will also be found in violation of our anti-bullying/anti-harassment policy. This policy went through a revision this spring based on a change to Iowa Code that in many ways makes it easier to apply this policy. Prior to the August 20, 2025 revision, this policy was only in force under a specific set of criteria. The updated policy removed those criteria and streamlined the applicability of these provisions. Notably, the student handbook is quite clear on the consequences for violations of this policy. Page 45 outlines these provisions, including a mechanism that automatically triggers a disciplinary hearing in front of the board with the third violation of the policy.
Inevitably, disciplinary sanctions that are imposed on students will leak. The student themself may share with their friends or classmates they had a detention. An unexpected absence without explanation may also lead to some drawing conclusions. Or, perhaps parents themselves may share the outcome of a sanction. To underscore the original point though, these actions will not be shared by the district. Even so, it may be natural to criticize the sanction(s) that were imposed by administrators. It is rare indeed to find the parent of a tormentor who believes the sanction was too lenient. Likewise, the parent of the target almost always will argue the district didn't go far enough. Each set of circumstances in unique unto itself with fact patterns that may not be known to all parties. They require viewing each case through a paradigm layered with subjectivity, ultimately arriving at a judgement call based on the parameters and rubrics set forth in board policy.
While scrutinizing the sanction may be fair game, saying the district didn't do anything isn't. Just remember, our policy is our guide, and it is very likely the public will not have all the facts.
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