A Challenge Reaching a Breaking Point
Across the country, educators are witnessing a rise in disruptive and at times dangerous student behavior. And it’s been happening for years.
From flipped desks and verbal threats to chronic defiance, the post-pandemic landscape has catalyzed a student behavior crisis. According to a 2022-2023 NEA survey, educators identified disruptive conduct as their second highest concern, just behind low pay. Simultaneously, Pew Research data revealed that 68% of teachers have been verbally abused by students, with 21% reporting frequent occurrences.
While these alarming trends stem from complex and multifactorial origins, school principals are in a strong position to lead a systems-level response. This article synthesizes expert insights and emerging research to offer actionable strategies for fostering a safe, supportive, and accountable school environment.
Understanding the Why
While it’s easy to chalk up bad behavior to “rebels without a cause,” it’s important to remember that more often than not, disruptive behavior is a message. Students’ actions often reflect trauma, unmet mental health needs, or underdeveloped social-emotional skills. As psychiatrist Nancy Rappaport and behavioral analyst Jessica Minahan argue, “Misbehavior is a symptom.” For many students, especially those facing homelessness, food insecurity, addiction in the home, or unaddressed mental illness, school may be the only stable environment in their lives … Yet even this space is now overwhelmed.
To make lasting change, principals must adopt the lens that behavior is communication. Identifying the function behind disruptive acts — be it escape, attention, or sensory needs — is key to meaningful, lasting intervention.
The Pandemic’s Lingering Shadow
Behavioral challenges are not isolated to individual students. They reflect a broader, population-level trauma. Social and emotional development deficits are widespread, particularly among younger students who missed crucial formative years during lockdowns.
Fanta Lee-Sankoh, a prevention and intervention specialist in Alaska, highlights the scale of the issue: “We simply don’t have enough trained staff to handle this crisis.” When the school functions as a frontline mental health facility — without the resources to match — classrooms quickly destabilize.
Short-Term Strategies: What Principals Can Do Now
While larger funding and staffing reforms take time, school leaders can act immediately to stabilize school culture. Principals should:
1. Model Relationship-Centered Leadership
Trust is the foundation for behavioral improvement. Encourage staff to show consistent empathy, engage students’ interests, and make time for authentic conversations. This investment builds the emotional capital needed for students to seek help before they act out.
2. Train for Trauma-Informed Response
Use in-service days to train staff on trauma-informed de-escalation, and ensure they understand the role of environmental triggers and the importance of regulation over punishment.
3. Implement FAIR Behavioral Frameworks
Encourage teams to use the FAIR plan model (Functional hypothesis, Accommodations, Interaction strategies, Response strategies) to decode behavior and tailor responses that address root causes, not just symptoms.
4. Audit Your Discipline Data
Who is being disciplined, and for what? Review whether certain populations (students of color, those with IEPs) are disproportionately penalized for subjective infractions. Use a race-equity lens when evaluating practices.
Long-Term Solutions: Structural Investments and Policy Change
Disruptive behavior cannot be meaningfully curbed without addressing systemic gaps.
Smaller Class Sizes and Increased Staffing
As educator Dirk Andrews noted, smaller classes allow for more individualized instruction and proactive behavioral support. Principals should lobby district leadership and work with teacher unions to push for additional hiring of paraeducators, social workers, and interventionists.
Restorative Justice Over Punitive Discipline
The data is unequivocal: Exclusionary discipline harms students’ social, emotional, and academic development. Schools must pivot from zero-tolerance policies to restorative frameworks that emphasize accountability, dialogue, and reintegration. This includes alternatives to suspension, such as peer mediation, behavioral contracts, and community circles.
Community School Models
Consider the transition to a community school framework, which integrates academic instruction with health and social services. This holistic approach has been successful in Denver and Portland, where unions have won wraparound services, mental health teams, and stronger student support systems through collective bargaining.
Further Reading and Tools for Principals:
Ed Trust & CASEL State Discipline Policy Scan
