The School of Education at Loyola University offer an online certificate in School Discipline Reform for professionals committed to serving their students and their communities by understanding, shaping, and implementing prevention-oriented approaches to school discipline. This part-time program is designed to equip education professionals-superintendents, principals, other school and district-level administrators, school attorneys, discipline deans, school psychologists, school social workers, counselors, and other educators - with the tools and skills to needed to lead comprehensive initiatives to reduce the use of suspensions and expulsions and their adverse impacts on vulnerable students.

Curriculum

Students may obtain the online certificate by successfully completing the four (4) two-credit hour courses in one to two years.

Required Anti-Racism Workshop

All students will begin the program with a required workshop in anti-racism (CIEP 571 School Discipline Workshop: Anti-racism).

Courses

The specific course sequencing will be tailored to each student in consulation with their academic advisor.

Course List

Code	Title	Hours
CIEP 535	System Consultation in School Discipline Reform	2
CIEP 537	SchDisc Ref: Linking Law Policy and Practice	2
CIEP 620	Legal Issues in School Discipline	2
CIEP 625	Restorative Justice in Schools	2
Total Hours		8

Required Immersion Seminar: Restorative Justice in Schools

Students are required to attend an intensive in-person seminar on Restorative Justice. The retreat offers students the opportunity to network with other professionals and engage in lively discussions and exercises related to the core principles and practices of restorative justice.

Learning Outcomes

This certificate program equips participants to:

1. Understand fundamental legal principles and law that guide school discipline practices;
2. Review and analyze school and district-level discipline data and conduct a root cause analysis;
3. Develop and conduct a needs assessment related to school discipline in their respective settings;
4. Plan, facilitate, and reflect on the effective restorative dialogue and a variety of proactive and responsive circles;
5. Apply the principles of restorative and anti-racist practices to address a challenge that their schools or districts are facing;
6. Demonstrate knowledge regarding a variety of research-based practices that can be implemented to prevent and respond to behavior within a framework of multi-tiered systems of support (e.g., universal/tier 1; secondary/tier 2 and tertiary/tier 3); and
7. Develop an action plan to implement prevention-oriented alternatives to exclusionary school discipline practices in their respective settings.