GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. — South Gwinnett High School has dramatically reduced class skipping and fighting through an unconventional approach: bringing office work into the hallways.
Principal Rodney Jordan, who joined the school two years ago, implemented a strategy where administrators and coaches maintain a constant presence in hallways, monitoring student movement while building relationships.
“I looked at myself inside of my office, and I just had an epiphany one day that there is nothing that I’m doing in this office that I can’t do on the hallway,” Jordan said.
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The results have been striking. Class skipping incidents, classified as “AWOL” by the school, have dropped 81.7% — from 1,487 incidents in the 2022-23 school year to just 275 in 2023-24. Fighting referrals have decreased by 79.4%, falling from 151 to 31.
Jordan’s approach includes paying coaches extra to serve as campus monitors during the school day.
“They receive a stipend for what they do as coaches, and they receive an additional stipend by working in the school during the day as well,” Jordan explained.
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Luther Mosley, a basketball coach and campus monitor, says the increased visibility has been key to the school’s transformation.
“With us being more visible, the students are less likely to try to engage in fights, engage in trying to skip and things like that, because we pretty much cover the whole perimeter now,” Mosley said.
The school has positioned administrators at desks throughout hallways, and teachers bring their planning period work into corridors instead of staying in classrooms. During class changes, staff will engage with students while keeping nearly 3,000 students moving efficiently between periods.
Senior Christian Francis has witnessed the school’s transformation firsthand.
“I know within the last few years before Principal Jordan came, it was fights, or students going off campus on an almost regular daily basis,” Francis said. “We’re not thinking about when the next fight is going to be or when the next person’s going to get in trouble, when someone’s going to go to tribunal.”
Jordan, a former law enforcement officer, applied principles from that field to his educational approach.
“Just sheer visibility can serve as a preventative measure to just so many things that any school in the nation can deal with or potentially deal with,” Jordan said.
The initiative has created benefits beyond discipline. Jordan reports that he’s now able to build deeper connections with students, remembering their names and achievements despite the school’s large population.
“It turns from just students looking at administrators or teachers and feeling monitored, to giving a high five because they’ve achieved that 87 on a biology test,” Jordan said.
Most importantly, Jordan says the results have also led to an increase in graduation rates over the past two years of his leadership.
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