Inside Four Walls: Who needs a discipline plan?

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.

Venting the Anger: counseling students

Ahhh counseling students. Something that we teachers hear all the time. Sit down and try to reason with kids whose brains won't fully develop for a few years after high school. But that's the age we are in. Don't jump the gun, try talking first. The reason I bring this up is because of an incident at my wife's work...not mine. Although I have had some run in's with the dreaded "counseled student" comment on a referral.

My wife's school gets broken into a lot. Last year, when she was on maternity leave her portable was broken into and her school lap top was stolen and some other items. Fortunately, she didn't have anything important there (mainly because she was on leave). So the district decides to put up security cameras outside and in the school. Her school is open concept which means that there are no rooms. Just one or two moveable walls separating teachers. In other words, once you get in the school, you can go to any room you want.

So they have the cameras and a couple weeks later another break in. No biggie, they have cameras right? No, the cameras were installed, but never turned on. They were for decorative purposes only I guess.

So last week, my wife's teaching partner (they share 40 kids in a portable) is in the room working on grades with the lights out (thank you daylight savings time). She had a trash can holding the door open just a bit. She then hears a student walking by say "yeah it's open, let's go jack some stuff." She sitting in the back of her room watching this kid (4 or 5th grader) walk into her room. He turns towards her says I didn't mean it and runs out. She goes and tells the principal and tells her what happened. Her response "that's too bad. We have to be sure to get him some counseling." Nice huh?