When students commit more serious violations, a good code of conduct should be able to address the problematic behavior and prescribe appropriate punishment. Among those more serious violations are the following:

• Cheating or plagiarizing
• Using profane, obscene, or ethnically offensive language
• Possessing pornographic material
• Theft (from another student or from the school)
• Gambling on school grounds
• Threatening the safety of another student
• Fighting with another student

Students who commit these more serious offenses will face stronger punishment. But no school district wants merely to punish a student and let an incident drop, particularly in light of the heightened sensitivity to school violence. Intervention programs often begin with conferences between the student and his or her parents or guardians and teachers and school administrators. Discipline can be rehabilitative in form. Instead of being suspended from class, for example, a student might be assigned to do a community service project. Someone who vandalizes a school building may have to repair that damage instead of merely paying for it.