In my role as educator/disciplinarian/leader/whatever-they-tell-me-to do, I often find myself conflicted. I had a situation where a boy "hit" a girl on the shoulder. It was truthfully a pretty minor thing. She had no injury. Both students are special ed. kids. The parent of the girl threw a fit, the police filed charges, I had to suspend the boy from school for a few days. When I spoke with him about being suspended, he had this look of terrified horror. That never happens here. NEVER. Sometimes they are annoyed at being suspended, other times they know their parents will be angry (not often), most often they seem to not care at all... after all, it's a day (or 2 or 3) without school... but they're never terrified of it. That should have been my clue.
He returned from suspension a few days later with a black eye. A teacher noticed it right away. We had to call CPS and make a report.
I think he wasn't terrified of suspension, but instead what was waiting for him at home when they found out about what he did.
Sometimes I wonder if all the rules and regulations and "mandatory" disciplinary actions (as opposed to using judgement) are appropriate. CPS is unlikely to make any real change in this boy's home life. They rarely do anything at all.
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I agree. Sometimes it is better for everyone concerned if the teacher uses his/her judgement to deal with the situation rather than adhering blindly to the concrete rules. For example, the boys at our school get into lots of fights and scrapes. The policy is that everyone involved is automatically suspended for a couple of days. I have broken up at least three fights in the past six months and nobody was sent home from school because I knew the kids involved well enough to have a stern word and send them on their way. You can't have nearly 1200 kids in the same space all day and not expect some sort of scufle to break out now and again.
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