Students at Portsmouth High School may soon have a new reason to behave- special Saturday morning sessions for students with disciplinary problems.
At a meeting of the Portsmouth School Board Monday night, School Board member Tim Steele made a motion to approve this new policy that would replace in-house suspensions with Saturday sessions on several weekends during the year.
Steele said that the new policy is being proposed in order to decrease the number of in-house suspensions, which require that students spend a school day in an empty classroom and miss class time. The new policy would no longer require that students with disciplinary problems miss any class time.
Still, many parents and high school students are not pleased with the proposed plan, saying that it is inconvenient for the students and their families.
“I’ve never served a detention and I don’t intend to,” said Lisa Gallagher, a senior at Portsmouth High School. “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. “
Peggy Bacon, a parent of a Portsmouth High School student, also spoke out against the new policy Monday night.
“I work six days a week- including Saturday morning,” said parent Peggy bacon during a discussion of the proposal. “It’s bad enough to get my son off to school Monday through Friday…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.”
Steele responded to these doubts, saying that the Saturday morning sessions will make students think twice before breaking school rules.
Portsmouth resident Bob Farley agreed with Steele and the new policy, saying that he liked the idea of the new rule.
“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,” Farley said. “Maybe if [students] have to miss a few Saturday morning cartoons they’ll start wising up.”
After discussing the policy and hearing from the public, the School Board requested that Steele return to the next meeting on March 7 with figures on in-school suspensions so far this year. The proposal will be kept on the table until that meeting after a 5-3 vote.
The agendas of all School Board meetings are available on the City of Portsmouth website: www.cityofportsmouth.com
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