Parents Decry Even Wimpy School Discipline

In Milford, CT, West Shore Middle School and Simon Lake School have instituted a new "Make Your Day" policy for school discipline. According to a letter posted on their website, the key idea is (1) keep rules simple, and (2) separate children who are being disruptive to the learning process. If a child is disruptive, they may be sent to sit down apart from the class, stand up apart from the class, stand up facing the wall away from the class, see the principle, or call their parents - in ascending order of severity. Seems pretty mild, right? Well, parents are objecting to even this mild form of school discipline!

"I talked to parents on Field Day. They say that their child was brought to tears," Anderson said. "A survey came back from Simon Lake parents. Some of the things brought up on it are inhumane."

Anderson said she is concerned by how students are sometimes made to walk toward a classroom wall and touch it with their noses.

"They have been taught to face away from the group. The children gravitate toward the wall," she said.

I have had friends and family work in the school systems in my area, and I am continually flabbergasted by the measures parents take to frustrate any attempts to discipline children. Furious calls are placed to the superintendant if a child is placed on detention or suspension, parents will not see teachers without a lawyer present, and the burden is always on the teacher to prove a particular child was bad, even if every previous teacher the child has ever had agreed. It seems to me that the solution to poor public schools may not be with the teachers. It may be with a movement to revolutionize the attitude of the parents.