The 14 Day Rollover Window

©Copyright 2008, Budd Churchward

When determining any Honor Level or the consequence a student should serve, we only take into account his or her discipline record for the last 14 days. No matter how much trouble a youngster may get into, there is always a way to work back up to Honor Level One. Each day is a new day, and the Honor Level is recalculated. Problems that occurred more than 14 days ago do not affect the calculation.

Students who have fallen from Honor Level One are notified the day they make it back. And as they progress upward through the Honor Levels, they are encouraged and reminded that they are improving.

When determining the appropriate stage of consequence, the computer will examine the record of behavior for the last fourteen days. The computer does not exclude weekends, holidays, or student absences. It examines fourteen days of the calendar. The term “3rd infraction” refers to the third infraction within a window of time that is only fourteen days long.

Your system may assign a student to after school detention two or three times in a row if the frequency of his or her infractions is about once every three or four days. It does not assign the fourth stage of consequence after the fourth infraction if the first infraction was more than 14 days in the past. The only way in which this child can reach lower stages of consequence is to decrease the frequency of citations. He or she will need to go more days in a row without problems.

Why 14 Days?

The Honor Level System is primarily designed around the needs of middle level students (although it is used in many elementary and high schools as well). We have found that asking a youngster to remember and appreciate that problems he had with his behavior fourteen days ago is about back as we can reasonably expect. Telling a student that he is going to have an after school detention because we are counting something he did weeks ago is counter productive. This leads to feelings of defeat and anger.

With younger students, in grades 3 or less, even this window is too long. HLS lets you easily put your primary grade students on a short window.

This is not a fixed window.

A common misconception is that we are talking about a two week window of time and that if a student misbehaves in the last few days of the window, she will go back to Honor Level One in a day or two. This is not the case.

This is a rolling window. Each day we look at today and the past 13 days on the calendar. This window slides over one notch each day. It takes a full fourteen days before an event pops out of the window and is no longer counted.

Each student has his or her own window calendar which you can view from the student record by clicking on the 14 day rollover button.

What about holidays?

Discipline is something that we do for children, not to them. As we have said, this is about how far back a student can reasonably relate their current behavior to previous actions. This is a function of time, not the actual number of days they attend class.

More importantly, when students return from long vacations, such as winter or spring break, we find that it is helpful to great them with the incouraging news that their Honor Level has improved. A student who has been a chronic behavior problem may desire to stay on Honor Level One, something that seemed so impossible to achive before the holiday.

Greeting the same child with the news that he is still in trouble and hasn't re-earned his priviliages is discouraging. This is the child who wonders why he should ever change his behavior, he is going to be in trouble for ever anyway.

Usually it is the teachers who object to this. And they feel it most strongly just prior to a holiday. Like the students, they too need a break. Your staff will soon discover that The Honor Level System is quick to adjust to a child's behavior. If this student returns and does not change his behavior, his Honor Level and the consequences will reflect this in only a few days.

Locking a student's Honor Level

Although we discourage it, because it is inconsitent with the HLS philosophy that a student should always be able to work himself out of trouble, some schools have requested a way to hold a youngster on a particular Honor Level. This over-rides the 14 day calendar and will lock the youngter there until you unlock it. This does not mean that a student can't move to a more severe level, but that the best level the student can achive will be the one you lock. Click here to learn more about Locked Honor Levels.