Disruptive Student Behavior

What are warning signs of disruptive student behavior?

Severely troubled or disruptive students exhibit behaviors that signify an obvious crisis and that necessitate emergency care. These problems are the easiest to identify. Examples include:

• Highly disruptive behavior (e.g. hostility, aggression, violence, etc.).
• Inability to communicate clearly (garbled, slurred speech; unconnected, disjointed, or rambling thoughts).
• Loss of contact with reality (seeing or hearing things that others cannot see or hear; beliefs or actions greatly at odds with reality or probability).
• Stalking behaviors.
• Inappropriate communications (including threatening letters, e–mail messages, and harassment).
• Overtly suicidal thoughts (including referring to suicide as a current option or in a written assignment).
• Threats to harm others.

If you are an instructor and a student enrolled in your class is disruptive:

• Make sure your syllabus notes your classroom management policy.
• Provide the student a verbal or written warning for 1st offense and keep documentation of the event (should it escalate).
• If the behavior continues, you may suspend the student for 1 day and must file a Student Conduct Report with the Student Conduct Officer. Make sure to include your documentation of the conduct issue(s) and prior action(s) taken.