Discipline problems have decreased since Madison County Middle School moved to a new building, according to statistics released by the school system.
The school reported that out-of-school suspensions dropped from 231 in 2006-2007 to just 62 this year through February.
As for in-school suspensions, that number dropped from 476 in 2006-2007 to 219 this year.
“We’ve had pretty significant decreases in discipline instances and severe discipline instances,” Madison County Schools Superintendent Mitch McGhee said.
McGhee credits the more close-knit atmosphere of the house concept utilized in the new MCMS building that opened during the 2008-2009 school year.
“One of the reasons we wanted to go to the house concept is that we felt that discipline would improve, creating that school-within-school,” he said. “The smaller climate, the more identification with teachers.”
McGhee shared these stats with the Madison County Board of Education (BOE) at its March 9 meeting.
“We don’t just want to say we’re doing good things,” McGhee said. “We want to collect the data to show that and find out if we’re on the right track.”