Overview

Discipline data entry in Focus involves both referrals and incidents. While a referral is any discipline event that your school would like to track, an incident is a state reportable discipline event. The DOE refers to an Incident as a SESIR, aka School Environmental Safety Incident Report. These instructions are to help guide you through the process of entering discipline information into Focus but note that every district has unique processes that this guide may not cover.

Referrals

When entering referrals into Focus there are two different views that a user may see. The Teacher view has a limited number of fields, typically these fields just describe what the referral was for. If turned on, the teacher may also can mark a referral as a minor infraction. Minor infractions are usually not escalated to the administrator and are only used by the teacher to track classroom issues. The Admin view has all the same teacher fields but also has additional fields such as the action taken for the offense.

Adding a Referral

To add a referral for a student, select Discipline > Add Referral . Then search for and select the student you wish to give the referral to. Below is an example of what a regular teacher’s view of the referral form may look like, this varies from district to district and even from school to school:

At the top by default you will see the name of the Student you selected. The Reporter will default to the teacher or if the admin is entering the referral they will need to select who is reporting the incident from the reporter pull down. The Incident Date will default to today’s date but can be changed if you are entering a referral for an incident that occurred on a prior day. The Submission Date will automatically populate and cannot be changed.

Required fields will display on the right side of the screen. You will not be able to save/submit the referral until all of the required fields have been completed.

Discipline/Offense Code

The Discipline/Offense Code options can vary between districts. Any codes associated with a state defined discipline code will also require the person entering the referral to enter a SESIR (this is called an Incident in Focus). Click this LINK to review the state codes and definitions.

State defined codes are as follows:

Arson
Burglary
Bullying
Disruption on Campus – Major (Disorderly Conduct)
Fighting (serious mutual combat or mutual altercation only)
Harassment
Hazing
Other Major Unclassified Offenses
Physical Attack
Robbery
Sexual Harassment
Aggravated Battery
Homicide
Kidnapping
Sexual Battery
Alcohol Possession and/or Use
Drug Sales and/or Distribution (excluding alcohol)
Drug Possession and/or Use (excluding alcohol)
Larceny/Theft/Motor Vehicle Theft
Sexual Assault
Sexual Offenses (Other)
Tobacco Possession and/or Use
Threat/Intimidation
Trespassing
Unsubstantiated Bullying
Unsubstantiated Harassment
Vandalism
Weapons Possession

Administrator Processing

After a referral has been entered, administrators will receive a portal alert that there are new referrals.

Clicking on this portal alert will take you to a list of the referrals which have not yet been processed by an administrator. Clicking on the student’s name on this list will take you to their referral to review.

At the top of the page you will see the total number of days of discipline broken down by the action codes that have been assigned to the student this year at this school.

Then below this you will see the information that the reporter entered on the referral.

Items highlighted in red are required fields without a value that must be filled in before you can save the referral.

On the right side of the screen you will see a running list of required fields that have not been defaulted along with any invalid data. You can click on the red X to navigate to the field in error.

Adding Actions

The administrator typically assigns the action code for the referral and may also be required to fill in some additional notes.

It is important for Discipline Codes associated with a SESIR to have state defined action code(s) also entered for the referral. Only referrals with state defined action codes are reported to DOE, but all SESIRs are reported to DOE. All SESIRs associated with students require a Referral with a state defined action code.

Click this LINK to view the state defined action codes and definitions.

State defined action codes include the following:

Corporal Punishment (do not use with a SESIR)
Expelled, Without Continuing Educational Services
Expelled, With Continuing Educational Services
Suspension Extended, Pending Hearing
Suspension, In-School
Suspension, Out-of-School
Placement in Alternative Educational Setting
Other SESIR Defined
Change in Placement

The next field Date Decided should be the date the action was assigned.

The Date Begins and Date Ends will automatically determine the Length of Action. The following actions require a length to be assigned: in-school suspension, out-of-school suspension, extended suspension, change in placement (students with disabilities only), expulsion or alternative placement. Do NOT assign Date Begins, Ends or Length of Action to any other action codes.

The Attendance Code field will automatically assign linked attendance codes to the student’s attendance for the period specified in Date Begins – Date Ends.

NOTE: this works for attendance in the future. This tool will not work for backdating attendance for the past. Be careful with assigning attendance code, if the attendance window is incorrect and you go back and change the Date Begins or Ends this will not remove the attendance that was already automatically assigned the first time the attendance code and window were submitted.

See below notes related to specific action codes:

Out of School Suspension (OSS) – For this code duration cannot exceed 10 school days.
In- School Suspension (ISS) – For this code duration cannot exceed 10 school days.
Other SESIR Defined – For this code duration cannot exceed 90 school days.
Suspension Extended, Pending Hearing - For this code duration cannot exceed 90 school days.
Change in Placement - For this code duration cannot exceed 45 school days. This code should be used for a unilateral decision by school personnel following a drug, weapon or serious bodily injury offense. This code is for students with disabilities only.
Expelled, With Continuing Educational Services – For this code duration should not exceed 210 school days. This will result in an exception report but may be acceptable by your district.
Expelled, Without Continuing Educational Services – For this code duration should not exceed 210 school days. This will result in an exception report but may be acceptable by your district.
Placement in Alternative Educational Setting – For this code duration should not exceed 210 school days. This will result in an exception report but may be acceptable by your district.

*Note- If an action of OSS or ISS is assigned and the student DOES NOT serve the days assign then the action should not be reported.* Example: student commits an offence and is assign 5 days of OSS but before they can serve their suspension they are expelled. You would then remove the OSS action and only report the expulsion.

If an expulsion flows to the next school year, you will have to do a new referral for the new year once that school year calendar is in place. Use the "Date Ends" on the referral for this school year to reflect the last day of school in the current year.

Administrator completing processing

Once the administrator is done processing a referral, click the checkbox next to Reviewed By Admin at the top of the referral. Remember to click the Save button to save your changes. At this point, the teacher can no longer edit the referral. Once this process is complete for all new referrals you will not receive an alert on the portal page until new referrals are entered for processing.

Note: All errors must be fixed before the referral can be saved. If the administrator does not have permission to the field in error, the field will appear in the sidebar on the right side of the screen. MIS department should be notified for permission.