If policymakers and school administration were to limit the scope of zero tolerance policies and the adoption of SRO programs, how might we reasonably make school grounds safer?

Given its exclusionary nature, zero tolerance policies have not proven to be effective. However, the literature does not campaign for the total removal of zero tolerance policies. This is because they indeed provide schools with a necessary resource to discipline students that exhibit problematic behaviour. So, one can reasonably conclude that any push to make schoolgrounds safer must preserve the foundation of zero tolerance policies in some way. This would serve to prioritize the safety of the broader school community, which requires schools to have the authority to remove students who commit acts of violence, bring weapons, or pose a serious threat.

What studies do shed light on is how exclusionary practices and SRO programs disproportionately impact Black and racialized students, increasing their likelihood of encountering the criminal justice system. This is partly due to the transfer of disciplinary powers from school administration to law enforcement, and the overreliance on exclusionary practices to address non-serious behaviour. This includes students who might back talk, be involved in school yard fights, or (unintentionally) damage school, among other things. Too often, students who might most benefit from grace and support instead face removal, setting them on a trajectory toward incarceration.

The literature is clear: exclusionary practices and referrals to law enforcement should be rare, reserved only for the most severe behaviours, and balanced with restorative and supportive measures wherever possible. This means that part of the solution lies not in whether zero tolerance exists, but in how it is applied.

Recommendations and Solutions

When rethinking the framework of zero tolerance policies, solutions should remain pragmatic, grounded in current budgets and staff capacity, while still expanding the imagination of what schools can achieve. Within this balance, three areas of reform emerge:

1. Early intervention and teacher support;
2. Accountability and structural change; and,
3. Family and mental health supports.

Early Intervention and Teacher Support

To move forward, schools don’t need to choose between discipline and compassion — they need systems that make safety sustainable and fair. This begins with early intervention and teacher support. Here, schools should treat discipline as an equity issue, not simply a matter of punishment. This requires:

• Developing stronger student-teacher relationships and culturally responsive classrooms;
• Providing teachers with training in conflict resolution, classroom management, and student engagement; and,
• Ensuring conflict leads to inquiry, problem-solving, and reintegration, not automatic exclusion.

Early intervention through stronger student–teacher bonds helps create safer environments as it personalizes classroom dynamics. When students attend school without meaningful connections to teachers, educators lose the ability to understand youth more closely, confront, reason, and instruct youth for change. Doing this leads to early intervention as teachers can understand students’ thought processes, emotions, and household dynamics that might contribute to negative behaviour on school grounds. This can equip teachers with the ability to suggest supports before problematic behaviour onsets and leads to exclusionary repercussions.

When behaviour does escalate, some teachers lack the tools to respond effectively, relying instead on office referrals that may result in suspension, expulsion, or even police involvement. While this may temporarily improve the classroom environment, it exposes gaps in training and ultimately increases the risk of criminal justice entanglement. Providing teachers with professional development in conflict management, engagement strategies, and reintegration practices strengthens both teacher effectiveness and student outcomes, ensuring exclusion is used only as a last resort.

Accountability and Structural Change

Disciplinary practices should also be transparent and aligned with educational goals. This requires:

• Collecting and publishing disaggregated discipline data to track disparities, particularly racial ones;
• Using that data to hold schools accountable for addressing gaps;
• Exploring targeted class size reductions, especially in schools with high suspension and expulsion rates, to give educators more space to focus on instruction instead of discipline.

Accountability begins with data. Without systematic collection and analysis, the disproportionate impacts of zero tolerance policies remain hidden, and schools cannot identify the highest leverage points for reform. Disaggregated data allows administrators to justify added supports on a school-by-school basis, highlighting where interventions are most urgently needed.

Class size is particularly important in this context. Smaller classrooms give teachers the capacity to provide individualized attention, reducing frustration, disengagement, and escalation. This not only improves academic outcomes but also strengthens classroom climates, making exclusion less necessary. Targeted reductions, especially in schools with chronic discipline issues, could therefore pay dividends in both achievement and safety.

Family and Mental Health Supports

Finally, safe schools depend on strong networks beyond the classroom. So, investments should be made to accomplish the following:

• Building opportunities for parent engagement through flexible meeting times and translation supports.
• Expanding access to counselors, psychologists, and social workers who can identify disabilities or mental health challenges early and connect students to supports.
• Ensuring schools are staffed to meet national standards for mental health professionals — a more effective use of resources than expanding SRO programs.

Family and mental health supports directly address the root causes of behaviour that too often lead to exclusion. When parents can engage meaningfully with schools — through evening conferences, accessible scheduling, or translation services — they become partners in creating safer environments. Likewise, schools that are fully staffed with counselors and social workers can intervene early when signs of disability, trauma, or mental illness first appear.

This approach is not only preventative but also cost-effective. Compared to the expense of policing and exclusion, investing in counselors provides long-term benefits for both student wellbeing and school safety. In practice, redirecting funds from SRO programs to mental health staffing offers a more sustainable model: one that prioritizes care, not criminalization.

Closing Reflection

Ultimately, the question is not whether schools should have discipline, but what kind of discipline best serves both safety and student futures. Zero tolerance policies and SRO programs, as they currently operate, have created pathways into the criminal justice system for youth who might otherwise thrive if given support.

Schools in both Canada and the U.S. can adopt more balanced, equity-centered approaches that reserve exclusion for only the most serious threats, while prioritizing prevention, intervention, and connection. If schools take this path, they not only create safer environments — they also disrupt one of the clearest pipelines to incarceration: the classroom.