Summation of Current Concerns: After polling both teachers and students, both groups express general dissatisfaction with the current detention system. Teachers and students agree that detention is not an effective deterrent to misbehavior, detention is not tracked nor implemented effectively, and there is concern from both parties about the efficacy of detention minutes doubling until Saturday detention is prescribed.
Proposal: The Committee would like to suggest that Animo Venice considers moving to a lunch period detention system. The detention list would be run on Tuesdays and Thursdays, student offenders would be retrieved during the announcements portion of 2nd period on those days, given a small lunch, and moved into a classroom to serve detention during lunch. All detentions will be the full lunch period.
Benefits: The Committee feels that this system would solve many problems. The security guard or dean would be responsible for retrieving the students, escorting them to the detention room, and monitoring for the duration of detention. This will ensure that all students serve their detention in a timely manner, detention policies will be consistent as the same person will always be monitoring, and serving detention during lunch is perceived as a harsher punishment by students. This will also allow students to have the afternoons free for office hour and practice attendance.
Possible Concerns: Teachers will be responsible for being present in the detention room, as the room will move from class to class on a rotating basis, which requires teachers to be willing to give up approximately one lunch every three months. Also, as the security guard will be monitoring detention on Tuesdays and Thursdays, teachers will need to be willing to assist with lunch supervision on these days. Students may attempt to circumvent the retrieval process by finding ways to leave class early on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so all teachers will need to be diligent about maintaining the integrity of their classroom bathroom policies and the like, especially on those days.
Other Questions: The Committee is still debating what activities students should be participating in while in detention. Options include a written reflection or various discipline-related readings. We will need to decide as a staff to commit to what student offenses are detention worthy and implement with consistency, and communicate this clearly to students. We also discussed the possibility of changing the discipline reaction to free dress and dress code offenses, including the possibility of tee shirts reading “TODAY I CHOSE NOT TO DRESS FOR SUCCESS. TOMORROW I WILL MAKE A BETTER CHOICE.” for students who are taking advantage of free dress days.
Any and all suggestions, questions, or comments on this proposal can be directed to Sara Sheffer, ssheffer@animo.org.
this is interesting!
ReplyDeletefrom an email sent by MR GARCIA
ReplyDeleteHi Jenn, Sara, and Tom:
I won’t be able to make it tomorrow night so I wasn’t too sure who to send this info to. The proposals look great, but I did want to give some feedback on detention:
With the Security Guard or Dean (do we even have a Dean???) monitoring lunch detention, there will be a consistent enforcement at detention, but won’t that consistent presence be missing out in the school yard at lunch? I think supervision at lunch, breaks, passing periods, and during class needs to be more consistent than it has been this year.
In the proposal there was mention of teachers being diligent about the restroom policy. I know this isn’t directly related, but I think we need to have a specific school-wide policy that is monitored by campus security…such as no restroom usage during the first or last 10 minutes.
I think coming up with stuff for the students to do during detention is the trick. Either way they need to feel bad about being there and not want to return. I don’t think reflections are the way to go because as it seems now, our repeat offenders are continuously told to “reflect” but continuously misbehave. I know that on at least two occasions students were told by administration to reflect and apologize to me for blatant disrespect (I’m not asking for apologies), but they blew it off and I never heard from them. I didn’t take it personally, but it clearly is not an effective consequence. I feel like when kids “reflect” they rarely take it seriously because that is a very easy way out.
FINALLY…as cool as the t-shirt idea is, I think it would be seen as a joke. I envision some of our tough kids wanting to wear that shirt and choosing not to dress.
I hope you might be able to share some of my thoughts. Thanks!
Because we now have Saturday detention, we don't need the doubling of minutes for students who do not attend detention. The doubling moves students too quickly to suspension and also devalues/lessens the effect of detention (I already have 200 min, so what if I get another 20).
ReplyDeleteI agree with Kevin that we need to find ways to make detention more of a consequence for students. Since we have a new school, manual labor would be a good start. Have them mop floors, clean bathrooms, organize the lunch area.
In our last meeting, Kevin also mentioned a merit/demerit system to go with detention. My wife's boarding school had such a system, and she felt it was a strong deterrent. We can look into how other schools do demerits and reward kids who have good behavior. Right now, we don't have a reward system for good citizenship.