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.

Inside Four Walls: Update on School Discipline...or lack thereof

So I decided to follow up on the incident from Student S the other day. I emailed his counselor and wanted to know why Student S only got a 1 day suspension for lying to a sub and cutting class. His response? It was his first referral for cutting a class. And yes, he did lie, but it was still only his first referral for cutting a class. The counselor saw these as one offense, not two separate ones.

I didn't reply, but then at lunch a teacher said if I didn't write him up for lying to go ahead and write him up for it. So I did. I sent up Student S for lying to a sub. Now in our student handbook it talks about students not being willfully disobedient to a teacher and identifying yourself to a teacher or administrator when asked. Clearly, Student S didn't do this.

So I get a call from the counselor and he asks me if I read his email. I say yes, but the lying wasn't on the referral that way he could have his "paper trail" that we are always told about. He sounded a bit annoyed by that comment, but he didn't do anything else.

I saw him after school and he tried to tell me again that it was one offense and that the lying really wasn't that important because it lead to the class cut.

I don't know if I will take it higher or bring it up later in summer with the principal before the new school year.

Venting the Anger: School Discipline...or lack thereof

Ok, so I wasn't at school last Thursday or Friday. Today I got the reports back from the substitute and noticed that two of my students left for a track meet at 1. That seemed a little early because most of the time it is 1:20. So I looked at the list for release times and noticed that there was no scheduled release time for track that day. Bingo! Class cut...two of them.

So I am writing up the referrals for the two students (Student A & Student J). I didn't know that Student J was in track so I thought just cut. So I am telling this to my TA and she tells me it wasn't Student J it was Student S. So I proceeded to write out a referral for Student S and thought the sub just misread the seating chart.

So I send up Student A & Student S for a class cut. I tell the class that I almost sent up Student J on accident. Then another student speaks up and says, "that's no mistake, Student S told the sub his name was Student J."

This was interesting to me because on top of a class cut, Student S lied to a substitute, a big no no in any district I am sure. As I am calling his counselor, my TA tells me that Student S also asked her if she thought he could get away with ditching the class.

I am pretty excited now, I have Student S who told my TA he was going to cut, lied to a sub, and then actually cut class. I explain it all to the counselor and wait.

Student A comes back with a simple 1 hour detention after school. I was a little upset, but that counselor has a reputation for going easy on discipline...so I wasn't too shocked. I read the referral and it said "student was confused about release time". Clearly she wasn't...but whatever.

Student S comes back in smiling saying he was pretty sure he would get caught, but whatever. I asked him for his referral and noticed he got only a one hour after school detention! And the same excuse was on there about being confused about the release time. So nothing happened for him lying to the sub.

I am getting sick and tired of things like this happening. How can anyone justify this? A student blatantly lies to a sub and cuts a class...his punishment? Oh that big one hour detention (actually 45 minutes). What has he learned? That he can cut class and not get into serious trouble. Oh and he can flat out lie to the person in charge and nothing else.

I usually don't bring stuff like this up to the principal or VP, but I think I might on this one. You can't justify a one hour detention for that. I have had students come back from getting detention for tardies with candy from the counselors too. I am sorry, but can anyone say reinforcing negative behavior? The counselors have been horrible on discipline this year. When a student is excited to go to their counselor to get into trouble, there's something wrong with that.

And what does that do to us classroom teachers? It takes away any power we have. The students know they can screw around and have nothing happen to them. Or they play good cop all the time. I had a student who was late all the time, the candy kid. So he was on crutches for a week and showed up late. They had 15 minutes to get to class, which is plenty of time, since you can get across campus in 5. So I send him up for being late. What happens? His counselor tells him "If you can convince Mr. W to take away the tardy, I won't give you a detention. I am sure he will, you are on crutches". Yeah how fair is that to me? I didn't change my mind either, in case you are wondering.

It is this constant coddling that is killing education. If it's not the parents, it's the counselors and administrators.