Dennis Dunlap is President of Student Responsibility Centers, a Michigan-based educational consulting firm whose mission is to assist districts in making schools Where......

One of Dunlap's key initiatives is "sharing the magic" about this discipline process. He uses his own personal experiences to highlight the power of the process. In May 1999, by invitation, he appeared before the U.S. senate task force on school violence. This discipline process was considered as one of the solutions to assisting with violence in schools. His work has been featured at the 1998 Natl. At Risk conference, the MACAE Fall conference, the MATEDC spring conference and MAEO spring conference.

Student Responsibility Centers is a discipline program designed to assist educators and staff dealing with students who interrupt the teaching and learning of others in the classroom. It is based on the premise that teachers have to teach and students have the right to learn in a safe environment. The discipline program is designed to include how to respect the rights of others, how to get along with their peers, how to make effective plans for studying and self-discipline, how to understand the purpose of rules, and how to work with adults in a cooperative atmosphere. This discipline process using Student Responsibility Centers (SRC) was originally developed for implementation at Odyssey Middle School/High School and is now being adapted for use in a number of other other Michigan schools.

For a detailed description of the Student Responsibility Centers model please see the page on Student Responsibility Centers in the New Teaching Ideas section of the Teacher's Workshop website.