Hart district officials are reviewing data, discipline policy and safety procedures Wednesday at the regular governing board meeting for the Santa Clarita Valley’s high school district.

At the meeting, which KHTS AM-1220 will be streaming live from Facebook, Kathy Hunter, the district’s director of student services, will be reviewing several aspects involving the district’s management of safety for more than 22,000 local junior high and high school students.

“She’s giving an update on the drills that each of the campuses will conduct for safety, lockdown procedures — and then she’s also going to be talking about discipline… and about how discipline over the years has been conducted.”

The district is looking not only internally, but also at how other districts, as well as theory and policies regarding district discipline, have changed, and the results of those changes, said Dave Caldwell, press information officer for the William S. Hart Union High School District.

Some of the data being looked at will include how many kids have been suspended five years ago, versus today, and what are the “other means of correction” and their efficacy, he added.

State policy, for example, has changed recently regarding when a school suspension is an appropriate corrective action for a student.

For example, a change in the state’s education code took effect Jan. 1, 2013, intended to lessen the number of suspensions and expulsions by school districts, which led to a drastic drop.

“The language explained that you’re not allowed to suspend or expel a student for a first-time violation,” said Kathy Hunter, the district’s director of student services, in a previous story, “unless you can prove that the child is a danger or that you have utilized other means of correction to change the child’s behavior and that has not been effective.”

She directed all requests for information regarding this story to the district’s PIO.

The district offers several programs, including a fairly new intervention-type curriculum, and Sober School, geared toward educating the student the issue or issues that are causing a specific behavioral problem, as well as correcting the behavior.

This came after an understanding that suspensions and expulsions aren’t always the best way to address a discipline problem, Hunter said in a story regarding the changes in policy.

If one student threatens another student with a knife, brings an explosive device — more akin to a bomb as opposed to a firecracker, or commits sexual violence against another student, among a few other exceptions, officials can suspend the student immediately, she said.

After several years of the policy being in effect, the district is now able to look at the impacts on behavior and the classroom.

Here’s the link to the KHTS AM-1220 Facebook page, check back on Wednesday, 7 p.m. to watch live as the Hart district’s governing board discusses Santa Clarita Valley