Thread: New rules at my School

Hmm. You make many good points. xD And just so its known, I used to have an absense problem in Middle School. I played hookey as often as I could until they threatened me that I'd have to repeat the 8th grade. There was no way I'd suffer that embarassment, so now I only miss one or two (if I'm really, terribly sick) days a quarter.

I don't think we have an atendance problem, we have a problem with people not doing their work. Even I admit as an Ex-Honar Roll student, I always wait until the middle of the night or 7am to work on homework. But many of my friends do not even attempt that. Although they blame that on problems like ADD. They tried to enforce a rule about that this year. If we had two missing assignments, then we'd be sent to detension until we were caught up. No one enforces this because the teachers are so busy grading all their work.
In my opinion we need Teacher Assistants (Like, get the lazy seniors to help)

And if I"m thinking of the right room , it is NOT a large room. Its right beside the choir room, and when I was in choir, we Altos would go in there (ISS just started up again This Year) and practice out part. And there was not much room to really go when its full of 20+ girls.

But. WOW. xD I'm sorry but theres no way they would enforce a fine rule at my school. Low income area, you see? Even in a large city I can't see that being used without a HUGE commotion following.

Most likely we'll become more defiant. Or perhaps not, one of our old teachers is becoming our Principal next year. He was pretty strict in class (A GREAT teacher), so, maybe he'll keep us on a short leash and make some people grow up. Things will definantly be interesting.

X3 Thank you for responding!

I personally encourage any rules that will cause students to be on time and not miss school. We have a strict tardy policy, anytime a student is not SEATED at second bell they are tardy and are "Locked Out" meaning they can not enter the classroom and they go to our version of ISS, Behavior Modification (A fancy name for my outter office).

1st Tardy - Warning
2nd Tardy - 3 Hours Community Service
3rd Tardy - 10 Hours Community Service
4th Tardy - 10 Hours + Saturday School
5th Tardy - 1 Day Suspension + Parent has to shadow student in school for a day.

Community service is served after school and before school on campus or at one of our local charities.

We do not have a policy for excused absence, unless they appear habitual. Unexcused however are treated as "Truant", first truant is 30 Hours of community service; second is suspended for the remainder of the term. Of course there are appeals and some students have been allowed back in after two, but it is rare it ever gets that far.

Wow, Dr Dailey, I really like your school's approach to this!

Usually the only people who do community Service are people who are in organizations such as Science Club, FBLA, BETA, Etc. I would love to suggest this to the School board, or Some important school figure (Like our Super), Buuut. Personally they all scare me, except our Super (shes a very funny lady and easy to talk to) and a couple of the high school teachers. But, who knows, I may gather the guts to do so.

X3 I really am glad you replied, thank you.

According to our state law, if a student misses more than 5 days without a "lawful" excuse- meaning a doctor's note, basically, then they have to make up the time they missed or they don't get credit for a class. Since we have 4 90 minute blocks, we get situations where students have to make up time 4 days after school at 90 minutes a pop for each day they miss beyond the 5th.

Our school's tardy policy is to refer them to the office every three tardies, and count it as an absence. Penalties range from after-school detention (the first time or two), then ISS, and/or Saturday detention. (Our enforcement is a bit inconsistent, although since the snack machines have been cut off it improved things a bit. In addition, students who drive get their parking permits pulled. That gets the seniors and juniors pretty much on time.)

I would love to suggest this to the School board, or Some important school figure (Like our Super), Buuut. Personally they all scare me, except our Super (shes a very funny lady and easy to talk to) and a couple of the high school teachers.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

You have a right to petition the government- and that includes the school board. Go to them with the idea, present it well, and at least you can say you tried.

I hope your school has a really large part of it's budget for legal costs as they are courting trouble. There are several cases that would be judges as unreasonable here and most of the public is just itching to pounce on stuff like this with their lawyer.
In a local school, they pulled a stunt they shouldn't and, the next day, 2 deputy's showed up to serve the papers. The "rules" changed rather quickly after the federal lawyers read them the riot act.
Of course, the most dangerous situation, when a school get abusive of it's role, is when they find themselves facing a mass walk-out such as happened last fall in a surb of Detroit area. When the administrator left, they student body returned. It was ruled, "a majority rule" incident.
whew!

Tom, do tell me you're kidding!

You mean to tell me we should cower and not enforce school rules that are obviously in place to foster the education process? We should not let the kids know that showing up late to class is unacceptable, hinders their education, and disrupts that class as well as being extremely rude to the teacher? When the kids skip school, we should brush it off and not care?

I for one refuse to shrink down and let these kids dictate how the school should be run. Despite what they might believe, someone really does need to make a majority of the decisions for them. At that age, they really don't see the path ahead, but only the current turn they are making.

It wasn't so very long ago I was one of those students who thought that the system was unfair and wished they'd "get off my back". I am now quite thankful that they teachers in my school were not afraid to take charge and do what's right.

Tom, it seems that you never want to confront controversy. I urge you to realize that you are an authority figure and take charge. The youth needs to be led. They'll not be capable of making good decisions if they've never seen good decisions made and enforced.

btw, I am not angry with you. Please don't react by deleting posts.

Whatever the policies, schools with well defined policies operate smoother than schools without them for both teachers and students.

Originally Posted by Tom (Houston)

I hope your school has a really large part of it's budget for legal costs as they are courting trouble. There are several cases that would be judges as unreasonable here and most of the public is just itching to pounce on stuff like this with their lawyer.
In a local school, they pulled a stunt they shouldn't and, the next day, 2 deputy's showed up to serve the papers. The "rules" changed rather quickly after the federal lawyers read them the riot act.
Of course, the most dangerous situation, when a school get abusive of it's role, is when they find themselves facing a mass walk-out such as happened last fall in a surb of Detroit area. When the administrator left, they student body returned. It was ruled, "a majority rule" incident.
whew!

If that was directed towards me, well, my stance on people suing our school over our rules is simple "Bring it on!". Since we are a private school I really do not care much about trivial lawsuits. We have a team of lawyers, three of seven members of our Board of Governors are attorneys, so we have it covered.

I believe that a strict, organized, yet fair, educational environment facilitates learning. We do have a few perspective parents “Raise their brow” at some of our policies, and a few decide not to enroll, but for the must part the parents support our stance. They are not always as equally supportive when we enforced the rules, especially when mommy has to take a day off work to sit next to little Timmy all day in school because he could not find his English Classroom in under 6 minutes in a school of only 14 rooms.

Before anyone makes a judgment about our strict stance on some issues, here is something to consider: out of an average 55 minute class period the teacher is able to devote 53 minutes to educating instead of calming down distractions; of the 22 graduates of our first Senior Class (We just added 12th grade this year) 19 of them have been accepted to either four year schools or a trade school of their choice; and due to the amount of class time each teacher can devote to educating, we have nearly ZERO homework with the exception of long term papers, essays, and reading assignments.

I believe my teachers should teach, not be crowd control in an organized teenager social function, which some schools call “The School Day”.

Just my opinion, I could be wrong.

I'm sorry if this offends anyone, but, if you must argue/debate with one another about each other's views and what not, please do it over PMs or e-mail. Maybe I'm saying this because I"ve had a long day, but when I check my e-mail, see that I have reply notifications, and then come here and see that a few aren't even talking about what I asked, its disappointing. And I'd really you just rather did this some other place.

Dr Dailey- I talked to one of my teachers today after school. I got our new principal's e-mail (He used to be my Science teacher last year), and I will be e-mailing him as soon as I get done typing this.

Our new principle is very strict. I know, I had him as a teacher for a whole year. The binder I used in that class, is the ONLY binder I've ever had that stayed in shape and in order ALL YEAR. He is an extreamly good teacher, and I know he will be an awesome Principal.

Tom- I doubt that my school has loads of money. But know one around here REALLY is going to sue them. Around here it's all about bluffing.
Take last year for example, two of my female friends wanted to go to prom together since they couldn't force any of their male friends to take them. In our rule book, it is against the rules to take a date to prom that is the same sex. Both of my friends threatened with lawsuit, but the school said 'Bring it on', and they backed down. (Around here, its very conservative. I get weird looks just because my hair is short and I'm female)
Although, if that rule is still active next year, ;D You can expect me to tackle it. Its discrimination. And NO form of prejudice is acceptable.

Mary- Just because you have power over something, does not mean you always make the right choices. And sometimes we students DO need to take charge and SHOW the leaders of our schools what they have done wrong. I'm not saying teachers and others should be spineless jellyfish, I infact dispise people like this, I'm saying the system needs to be balenced. I think a student should never feel badly towards their admin system because of how they enforce their rules. Students should be able to feel comfortable about their school and not stress about 'Oh man, I just KNOW I'm going to be in ISS all year'. And YES, I HAVE heard many of my fellow students say these things.
My school is small, but the student population is growing. We have two hallways, one is the Freshmen, the other is 10th-12th graders. This means our hallways are EXTREAMLY packed. There is no way students will be able to get their stuff, go to the bathroom, and get to class in four minutes. Now I'm sure thats a valid reason to dislike my school's tardy rule.