Introduction
A longstanding distinction in public policy differentiates between top-down processes, where policies dictated by higher-level authorities influence implementation on the ground, and bottom-up processes, where ground-level actors shape implemented policy and even influence higher-level decision-making. Studies have found that teachers and principals play a critical role in shaping education policy (Ball, Maguire, et al., 2011; Giudici, 2021) and that top-down processes by themselves are insufficient to create change in education systems (McLure & Aldridge, 2023). This study aimed to examine the influence of teachers and principals on education policy and its implementation in the field of school discipline in Israel, in times of frequent policy changes (Ministry of Education, 2015, 2020, 2023). The study focused on identifying the challenges and implications stemming from the interpretation and implementation of educational discipline policy in Israel.

Theoretical Background
Many studies in the field of discipline policy have focused on policy changes at the national level. For instance, Fast explained the adoption of a centralized and stringent discipline policy as a result of legitimacy struggles of the Psychological-Counselling Services in the Ministry of Education (Fast, 2016). Policy implementation is influenced by various contextual factors. For example, the implementation of a reform aimed at reducing punitive measures was struggling for schools serving disadvantaged populations (Anderson & McKenzie, 2022). Several studies have examined the relative influence of different actors on discipline policies in schools. The most comprehensive study in this field found that school principals perceive themselves as the most influential factor in shaping school discipline policies, with teachers as the second most influential group (Curran, 2017). At the classroom level, surveys among teachers indicate that they feel relatively autonomous in enforcing classroom discipline (Jerrim et al., 2023; Sparks et al., 2015).

The significant influence of educators stems from their role as street-level bureaucrats (SLBs) (Lipsky, 2010), who are responsible for implementing, influencing, and even altering policies on the ground. Lipsky explains that SLBs are accountable both to official policy directives and to citizens, requiring them to make complex decisions under conditions of time and resource constraints. In facing these challenges, their decisions effectively shape new policy (Lipsky, 2010).

Ball and colleagues (e.g., Ball, Hoskins, et al., 2011) examined how teachers interpret education policies, showing that policy isn’t formed by the government and implemented by teachers. Rather, policies are constructed in a complex, disorderly process by various stakeholders, from senior officials to classroom teachers, through translating and interpreting directives and policy documents (Ball, Hoskins, et al., 2011). In many ways, these studies address sense-making, a process triggered by uncertainty in which individuals strive to understand a situation and enable action within it (Sandberg & Tsoukas, 2015; Weick et al., 2005).

While those studies map some important factors that affect the enactment of education policy as a whole and disciplinary policies specifically, there is still a gap in the literature concerning the cognitive and social processes through which teachers and principals interpret national discipline policies, shape discipline policies of schools and navigate the associated challenges and implications.

This qualitative study is based on semi-structured in-depth interviews with 30 educators, including 10 school principals and 20 teachers. All participants were employed in public schools in the Haifa and Northern districts of Israel. Beyond this similarity, participants were purposefully sampled to maximize diversity in terms of age, tenure, gender, student age groups, and students’ socioeconomic status. The sample also included participants from both urban and rural schools. Interviews lasted 45–90 minutes. The interviews questions regarded the disciplinary policy in the school or class and how it was formed, autonomy and commitment regarding disciplinary policies, and attitudes towards the Ministry of Education disciplinary policy. All interviews were recorded and transcribed. The transcriptions were then analysed using Dedoose© software following a categorical analysis approach rooted in grounded theory (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). Two researchers analysed the texts independently, compared findings, and conducted discussions until consensus was reached.

The findings revealed that educators viewed policy texts as lengthy, complex, and impossible to fully internalize. These views created an “implementation gap”, as the policies failed to influence the establishment and enforcement of school behavior standards, and educators relied primarily on their own judgement in disciplinary decisions. This “implementation gap” introduced challenges that were linked to the educators’ uncertainty about whether their actions adhered to Ministry of Education directives. In extreme cases however, and often retrospectively, staff and parents referred to policy documents, “invoking” the policy either to ensure legal protection or to resolve disputes over previously enacted policies. Established theories of sense-making and SLB assume the existence of defined policies led by higher authorities and implemented by ground-level actors (Lipsky, 2010). The findings suggest that discipline policy in Israel is a "dead letter," with teachers and principals primarily relying on their own judgment. Participants perceived this situation as autonomy in managing classroom and school discipline policies. However, they remained uncertain about the boundaries of this autonomy and constantly feared unknowingly violating regulations. It can thus be argued that teachers engage in sense-making (Sandberg & Tsoukas, 2015), not to make sense of existing policy but rather to explain its absence from their daily professional lives. Maguire and colleagues (Maguire et al., 2015) differentiated between policies enforced by the state and those that remain advisory. Our findings indicate that Israeli discipline policy attempts to straddle these two approaches. On the one hand, there is no attempt to instil or enforce the Ministry of Education’s discipline policy routinely. On the other hand, extreme circumstances or parental complaints drive staff to reactively "invoke" formal policy as SLBs. This study highlights the duality and manipulation inherent in Israel’s discipline policy, oscillating between non-enforcement in routine situations and reactive enforcement in extreme cases.

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