I am tired after a long day and procrastinating life tasks.... long post incoming 😔 "They can't MAKE your kid serve detention. It requires parental consent.
I am tired after a long day and procrastinating life tasks.... long post incoming 😔 "They can't MAKE your kid serve detention. It requires parental consent. I refused to allow my oldest to serve a detention for being tardy three times. She doesn't drive. How TF are you going to punish her for something outside her control? The school doesn't have legal authority over your kids; you do." This comment comes from a post regarding this incident in CA. The post is a video along with the alleged timeline of events. Unsurprisingly the timeline in the post is inaccurate. The entire ordeal was less than an hour and it seems the parent triggered the safety protocol. As I scrolled through comments this one immediately jumped out to me. Some backstory: Over the summer I became a little obsessed with our district's code of conduct. I read the code itself and dug through the separate guidelines on what consequences to apply and when (highly recommend this to the policy nerds). I became more aware of how the rights of students and families encroach on the day-to-day operations of a school. I already knew it through experiences (3rd yr teaching HS). But seeing how it had been codified gave me a new perspective (and made me feel bad for our dean!). Back to the comment I have shared here - I have dealt with entitled parents. But seeing it here in a Reddit comment was..... wild? Maybe I just haven't fully comprehended entitled parents yet? You're telling me there is a school policy that penalizes tardiness. Your child has been late 3 times, meaning there is a penalty to be served. And your response is, "it's out of my kid's control so they're not serving the penalty". ?????? Really this comment triggered that connection I made over the summer - students and families have a lot of rights. And sometimes their rights empower them to directly contradict school policies. Which are usually created to maintain the school as a place of learning. So what is more important? Whose rights are prioritized? Those are existential questions for the US education system. So instead I ask: do you see a future in US public education where the rights of students and families are rolled back in the name of "preserving the learning environment"? The idea of rights being rolled back prompts immediate pushback in my mind. Especially with gestures vaguely to the current head of state, I find it concerning that I would somehow support rights being limited. That being said, I'd like to be able to do my job.... And the inability to address behaviors like tardiness, roughhousing, etc. without having it go through a 10 step process is asinine. Depending on the grade we are spending 45 mins to 6 hours with these children. When do we as professionals get trusted to apply consequences? For example, at my school were are not permitted to give detention. (Although lunch detentions are a loophole and I have utilized them sparingly to great success 😊) submitted by /u/Choppers_Dad [link] [comments]
