Saturday morning cartoons are a thing of the past for delinquent students in Portsmouth High School. Students who misbehave in school may be required to fulfill a Saturday morning session from 8 a.m. to noon.
This new disciplinary measure was introduced to try to cut back on the number of in-house suspensions that occur. In-house suspensions require students spend a day in school under faculty supervision and miss a day of school work. These new rules would also make sure no class time is missed. Steele said, I know it isn’t good news for parents, but I hope the threat of Saturday classes will make the students think twice before breaking the school rules.”
Peggy Bacon, a parent, didn’t think this was a good idea. She said, “I work six days a week – including Saturday morning—and it’s bad enough to get my son off to school Monday through Friday. Why should I have to worry about Saturday as well? Why do we need a change? I know my son isn’t perfect, and I know he’ll probably wind up on the Saturday list at some point, but I’m not going to force him to go. I just don’t think it’s going to make any difference, and the parents are going to pay for it—in higher taxes as well as in ruined Saturdays.”
One resident in favor of the new rules is Bob Farley. Farley said, “Parents can whine all they want about this, but maybe it’s time parents in America were made to take a little responsibility for their kids. That’s the whole problem—parents aren’t teaching their kids any discipline, so the kids have no respect for the rules. Maybe if they have to miss a few Saturday morning cartoons they’ll start wising up.”
Lisa Gallagher, a senior who attended the meeting, spoke out against the new rule. She said, “In 12 years of school I’ve never served a detention, and I don’t intend to. But I don’t like this idea. I think it’s just being done to make life easier for the faculty, so they don’t have to deal with detentions during the week. Anyway, what if someone skips the session? What are they going to do make them stay all week?”
Steele responded to this with, “If a student skips Saturday School, he or she would not be allowed to return to school until the detention has been served.”
This session will cost about $3,000 per year for staffing and will only be held several Saturday’s throughout the year.
After about 30 minutes of discussion the board voted 5-3 with one member abstaining. The issue will continue next meeting, March 7. Steele was instructed to bring figures on in-school detentions so far this year.
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