I know an even more dangerous suggestion, and that is suggesting incarceration of youth. While suspension is definately not the answer, placing students in "continuation schools" and/or "turning them over to the authorities" are definiately not the answers.
Where is the parent accountability here? What happened to sending a teacher/staff liaison to a student's home to talk about the disciplinary/attendance problem with the parents ( and I propose this as an option rather than expecting a low-income/poor parent to take a day/half-day off from work to go to the school). When a student has disciplinary or any other kind of problem, the answer is developing a one-on-one plan with that student to overcome the problem/obstacles. The answer will never be to simply throw the student away either to a school that has been ghettoized by lumping all "problem" students together or by simply turning the student over to the juvenile INjustice system. Schools are a lot cheaper to build, run, and maintain than jail cells. Treat young people like criminals/delinquents and they will live up to our collective expectations. -Brandon Lacy Campos -Powderhorn Park -Candidate, Boad of Education [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Diane Wiley wrote: > >> Did anyone else reading the paper this week have a fit when they saw >> that 20,000 kids were suspended in Minnehappiness last year? We have >> about 48,000 students in the district. I know that some of these are >> repeats, but still.... Around 400 kindergartners, over 1000 2nd >> graders. This is lunacy. How can sending kids home send a message that >> is anything but bad. Whatever happened to detention in-school? Anyone >> connected with the schools have anything to say that makes sense about >> this? This seems to me to be an extremely lousy policy. > >I believe that there should be one or more "study halls" or rooms where >students should be sent temporally for disciplinary reasons. If students continue >to be a problem in these situations they should be sent to separate >"continuation schools" and if they fail there they should be turned over >to juvenile authorities. Suspension as a disciplinary procedure is stupid >and dangerous (putting kids out on the streets as punishment is ridiculous). > >Michael Atherton >Prospect Park > > >_______________________________________ >Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy >Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: >http://e-democracy.org/mpls > _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
