Disproportionalities in school discipline raise serious questions about educational equity. The disparities are systematic and permeate both traditional and charter schools in the U.S. Although prior research highlights the centrality of schools’ policies and practices in explaining the rates of and disproportionality in school discipline, the significance of the variation in discipline policies and practices across schools remains a relatively overlooked issue, especially among charter schools. While the existing evidence has largely established that school-level variables influence discipline disparities, very little is known about the role of the neighborhood in informing school discipline. Charter schools are fitting for exploration into whether and how neighborhood shape school discipline policies because charter schools are granted autonomy in crafting school discipline policies and their placement in neighborhoods is not random. This study aimed to close the gap in the discipline literature by examining whether and how beyond school-level variables, particularly the level of concentrated disadvantage within a neighborhood, may contribute to variance in charter school discipline policies. The findings from this study indicate that regardless of schooling level or concentrated disadvantage level, the vast majority of charter schools in the sample relied on traditional punitive consequences to address student misbehavior. Major differences between advantaged and disadvantaged schools were in the: (a) fundamental purpose of education, (b) number of behavior infractions listed in discipline policies, and (c) most commonly cited behavior infractions in discipline policies. While cognitive/academic development and emotional development were identified as the major purposes of education across all schooling levels, the findings were inconsistent across advantaged and disadvantaged schools. Advantaged schools stressed the importance of academic rigor while disadvantaged schools prioritized emotional development. Advantaged schools’ discipline policies cited more behavior infractions and linked more behavior infractions to exclusionary discipline. Class/school disruption and cheating/plagiarism were the most common behavior infractions cited in advantaged schools’ discipline policies whereas general staff disrespect and inappropriate language were the most common behavior infractions cited in disadvantaged schools’ discipline policies.
