I remember cutting school once in 8th grade and getting caught. They called my mom in and made a big deal, which was fine. I figured I’d get in trouble and I’ll be without TV for a week. But hell, it was totally worth it. And it’s not like I was going to be cutting school everyday, though I did figure I’d do it once per year. Just for fun
Anyway, they dragged my mom in and tried to get her to give permission to saddle me with in school suspension. Even as an 8th grader I was looking up at these people, my educators, realizing how stupid they were. Uhm, you want to punish me for cutting school, and missing out on my classes… by making me miss out on my classes! Brilliant! I told my mom as much, saying, I know I should be punished, take away TV or games, or whatever but don’t play into these idiots hands. I had my fun, time to get back into class and learn.
She agreed.
Which is why I would agree that Saturday detention would be a more appropriate punishment. Mind you, it should be administered by the parents at home. Not by the School.
FYI, your post above (which looks to have been your first SDMB post) created a “zombie thread” – the last post in it before yours was 7 1/2 years ago. Creating zombies will earn you a certain amount of (generally good-natured) grief (see TriPolar’s reply to you).
I don’t have anything against it in principle. Yes, it’d be inconvenient and unpleasant for the students - that’s kinda the point of a punishment. However, there are limits - if it would be extremely difficult for the child to get there, or if Saturday is their family’s day of worship. And Saturday detentions for minor offences like ringing phones are ridiculous.
However, the school would have to pay people to oversee the detention and make sure the building is open, secure, heated/air-conditioned, make sure there was a first-aider on the premises, etc. Could be expensive.
IME, out-of-school suspensions (external exclusions) are partly about just giving the excluded kid and the school breathing room for each other. Let the kid be out of that environment for a few days, let other students learn in relative peace for a few days, break up troublemakers for a few days, save the teachers’ sanity for a few days, and everyone’s a little calmer when the child returns.
However, most of the external exclusions I’ve known don’t just send the kid off for free time - they get sent to a pupil referral unit instead, so not only are they still having to go to school, but it’s without their friends, and they get specialist support there which can help them with their longer-term problems.
This happened to one of my nieces a few yrs ago. She didn’t get to sit at home for a year either. She had to go do a special school run directly by the state Dept. of Education that was basically a day version of juvenile hall (in fact some of her classmates were bussed in from a juvenile hall). From what I heard it had really strict dispipline; uniforms (which ironically were required at her normal HS by the time she was allowed back in), students had to line up & by esorted by their teacher to go anywhere (even the bathroom) like grade school students, no doors on the stalls, boys & girls were kept totally seperate (even seperate lunch times), and the instruction was exactly the bare minimum the state required, nothing more.
She hated it, her mother hated it (but her other options were to quit her job & homeschool or pay for private school on her own dime, neither of which my brother would even consider). She got through it, went back to normal school, and graduated without any problems. Granted she hasn’t exactly made the best of choices since then, but at least she has a high school diploma.
It’s funny, I live in a state where apparently no school district is actually required by law to provide any student with transportation. They all do, except for some of the urban districts re HS students, but this could be changing soon thank’s to out governor. Alot of rural districts are facing the prospect of 4 day weeks or directly charging parents or dropping bus service altogether. I know when I was in school the district had a policy of banning students who acted up on the bus and making their parents drive them to school everyday.
Huh, that takes me back. We had ‘Saturday School’ too which they tried on me exactly once. The adult who was supposed to watch the kids wandered off and left them unsupervised, and I ended up being attacked and punched in the belly. When I could function again (and the adult still hadn’t come back), I got up and walked out then back home. I told my parents and the school that if they wanted me to go there again they’d have to literally drag me there and chain me down (and meant it). Fortunately two of the girls there backed my story, which I suspect is why I never heard anything more about it.
