MASSENA — The Massena Central School District will take a new approach to student discipline this winter.

Out-of-school suspension will cease in an effort to curb the district's high dropout rate.

Instead of being forced off school grounds because of violence or repeated incidents of insubordination, students will be given in-school suspension. A separate classroom for students who would have been suspended under the old policy is being set up and will be complete in December.

Banning students from the classroom does not work, according to Julie L. Reagan, president of the Board of Education.

"Suspensions take kids who are at risk and make them more at risk," she said. "We're looking for a balance between safe, sound policy and common sense working with our kids at risk."

Massena has the highest dropout rate in St. Lawrence County, according to Alan C. Oliver, high school principal.

Suspended students get less instruction time than other students. They are required only to meet with a tutor a few hours a day during their punishment. Students who have been given in-school suspension for lesser offenses are sent to separate classrooms to receive instruction.

Now, students given out-of-school suspensions will receive the same kind of instruction in their separate room.

The policy change does not apply to all offenses, Mrs. Reagan said. Students who are found with weapons will be banned from school grounds for a period of time. Under the old policy, they would be subject to a suspension of at least one year.

"We won't be putting any students at risk," Mrs. Reagan said. "They're going to be segregated from the general population."

The policy change offers another opportunity to help at-risk students, instead of chucking them out of the education system, she said.

Most school districts in the county, including Canton, Potsdam and Madrid-Waddington, use out-of-school suspension as a penalty for violence, having weapons in school or repeat offenses.

"I believe we're probably the first in the area" to get rid of the practice, Mrs. Reagan said.

She said that many students who are suspended have not done anything bad enough to merit the suspension.

"It's startling what kids are being suspended for: verbal aggression, fighting," she said. "These things really need to be addressed, but when you have a kid bring in a butter knife for an art project and get suspended?"

Studies have shown that suspensions do not address behavior problems and do not make a student want to learn or change bad attitudes, she said.

"Suspending kids is a short-term fix to a systemic problem," Mrs. Reagan said. "Our policy of zero tolerance hasn't worked."