So I have known about this for a few weeks now, but in case some of my students knew of this blog I kept it under wraps. But as they say, the cat is out of the bag now.
Our schools budget was cut, like everyone else's, and our principal decided to maintain the status quo with keeping sports and IB funded. Well, seems that discipline isn't that big of a deal because the extra duty pay that went along with one hour detention and Saturday work detention were cut. So what was the plan? Apparently, they were hoping people would volunteer to do detention. Really.
So fast forward to today, I was putting notes on the board for my Algebra 2 Senior class when one of the students asks me "Is it true there's no more detention?" I say I have no idea. Then it opens the flood gates. It was a flow of "I heard the GLC's are doing it.", "I heard there is no detention til next semester", "I heard there's no more Saturday school." I do a pretty good job of ignoring the statements until one kid says, "I cut class last week and I was warned to not do it again. I did it last year and I was told it's an automatic detention. What's up with that?"
So to stop rumors, I told them detention was up in the air, but that the GLC's would most likely run it. It's funny how bad at math they can be, but then surprise you at other times. It took a few seconds before someone said, "there's 8 GLC's and there are 3 one hour detentions and one Saturday. They can't do that the whole year." It's funny because he is right.
Talking to our ASB director he is concerned because the Saturday kids would clean out and sort the recylcable trash cans. And I don't think he wants to do it.
So what is the discipline plan? No one knows. I have a couple students with two tardies, 3 is an automatic one hour detention, so it will be interesting to see what happens the next couple of days. Nothing like starting off the year with no discipline plan.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Sounds like a recipe for disaster if you ask me.
I can't speak for your school's policies but there can be ways of discipline in this low budget environment. For example, lunchtime detention, extra assignments, referral to the principal or vice principal, suspension of eligibility for extracurricular activities, have to go to tutoring instead of art or music for a couple days, etc. Maybe the real answer will be to teach and enforce civility among the kids.
Stephen
Stephen,
Those are definitely "out of the box" ideas that haven't been discussed, at least publicly. I agree about the civility part, but from what I witnessed when the seniors found out about no detention leads me to believe they aren't ready.
Post a Comment