My son and another boy, both 9th graders with IEP’s (my son for ADD and the other boy for LD) were caught with a group of boys smoking pot. No pot or paraphernalia were found on either boy. Both boys were questioned. The other boy immediately admitted to smoking the pot. My son admitted to holding but not smoking it Yesterday, we had the IEP meeting at school where my son finally admitted to smoking it. Because the other boy admitted to smoking it right away, he was suspended only for two months. Initially, they told us that our son would be suspended for the entire next semester. When questioned about the difference in the “sentence” of two months versus five months, they told us it was because our son had not confessed right away. While we understand the issues involved— trust, etc., we do not feel that this is really fair. Although our son took longer to confess, it was very difficult for him to do so in a meeting with five school officials focused solely on him.
Should the difference in the timing of the two boys’ confessions have such a significant affect on their period of suspension. Do we have a chance to win some sore of an appeal based on this?
Re: Is this fair?
How does depriving a boy of his education for a semester solve anything? Why not instead starve him for 40 days or place a plastic bag over his head until he passes out.
I love the way dadandteacher passes the buck to the parent when the boy was caught smoking drugs IN SCHOOL. Surely, the school administrators should be worrying about the fact that students are doing drugs in their school and not how best to revenge “consequences”.
Nobody should ever be punished for doing drugs. They need counselling and treatment not more reasons to do more drugs. In this case, the school should provide these services.
Perhaps the parent failed in some way (in what will probably be proven someday to be a crap shoot - child-rearing) but the school, failed not only the child but the parents who trusted (and paid, directly or indirectly) them to supervise their children, and society at large that expects school administrators to DO THEIR JOB in return for being trusted to do so!
To the parent: If the suspension sticks, give thanks and get your child away from that loose school…permanently!
Re: Is this fair?
How can schools possibly have control over what kids bring into the school unless a search is done on them daily? Then they would have parent complaints above infringing on the students’ privacy.
Re: Is this fair?
Okay, let’s follow Guest’s train of thought wherever it might lead….
How can parents possibly have control over what their children take to school without searching them daily at the school gate? How can parents have control over anything their children do? Why bother even speaking to parents when an infraction is committed in school. It’s not THEIR fault. What could THEY be expected to do?
So, no blame to the school and no blame to the parents. The boy is underage, however, we have no choice but to hold him responsible and meet out punishment for his having offended the “image” of security that the school was attempting to promote to prespective dollar-bringers. The punishment schedule itself reflects a moralizing attitude that has no basis in justice, i.e., two months for smoking pot and three more months for lying about it. Which “crime” is really the more serious? Which crime though, offended the mighty school administrators more? It would appear that those learned gentlemen have based their policies on “Tom Brown’s Schooldays” with the concomitant lack of compassion and respect for the human condition of that era.
Guest lets the school off Scot free. Would Guest also condone a new Colombine policy that simply states that, “All students taking part in future massacres will be severely dealt with”? Or do schools owe us more in the way of prevention programs?
The only difference between the boy’s home and the boy’s school in this instance, was that the boy obviously felt that he was freer to indulge in illegal activity within the confines of the latter. What does that tell you about the esteem in which that school is held by its pupils? If the school is not responsible for the child’s welfare during school hours, who is?
I’d have thought the father would have consulted a lawyer regarding a possible negligence lawsuit by now.
schools and punishment
Schools, like so many other things, are hardly about being ‘fair’. And, if you think about it, isn’t ‘effective’ the word you’re looking for? Punishments should be effective or - what’s the point of them?
As both a teacher and a parent, many of the decisions I see coming from schools these days make no sense. We live in interesting times and no one seems to know what’s best to do. The sentence of two months vs. 5 months suggests that somewhere somebody thinks that after two months, the first boy will never again think of bringing pot to school but that it will take 5 months for your own son to come to that.
but sadly that’s not true. Schools punish just to punish and rarely does anybody in them ever stop to ask if the punishments are producing any desired effect. In fairness to schools, the task being asked of them is an impossible one. In the modern world, schools cannot police - much less educate - the number of children we’re cramming into them. In fairness to disgruntled parents and taxpayers, no one in schools seems willing to admit that.
Good luck. I am sorry to see my own two sons grow up and I miss them but I do not miss having them in school. Suspending students from learning sadly makes no sense as a punishment if the point of school is still supposed to be that - learning - but until we restructure schools to truly serve students and their learning we tragically have to settle for what school does however nonsensical it may be.
You need to focus on the problem…your son is using drugs. Worrying about his punishment being fair will teach your son that you are mad at the school, and not mad at him for what he did (or is doing). Every consequence is different, and the last thing administrators should have to worry about is being fair.