No more sleeping in for Portsmouth High students who misbehave during the week if the school committee passes a new rule requiring delinquent kids to attend weekend classes. The classes would be held Saturday mornings from 8 a.m. to noon.
Peggy Bacon, a parent, said she did not think the proposal was a good idea. “I work six days a week—including Saturday morning. 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.”
School Board member Tim Steele feels the that new disciplinary measure is being proposed in an effort to reduce the number of in-house suspensions which are being given automatically to students caught smoking inside or outside of Portsmouth High School “I know this 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.”
Steele reported that last year 154 students received in-house suspensions which required them to sit in an empty classroom with a faculty member for the day. An in-house suspension does not allow students to make up the missed work for that day. The new program would mean that the student wouldn’t miss any class time.
High School students are enraged at the new proposal. Lisa Gallagher, a senior, spoke against the rule. “In 12 years of school I’ve never had 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 is someone skips the session? What are they going to do, make them stay all weekend?”
Steele explained that students who have disciplinary problems during the week would return to school for a special Saturday morning session. It would run from 8 a.m. until noon several weekends during the year. Students would not be allowed to return to school until the detention had been served. The new program would require an allocation of about #3,000 per year for staffing.
Portsmouth resident Bob Farley 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. That’s the whole program—parents aren’t teaching their kids any discipline, so the kids have no respect for rules. Maybe if they have to miss a few Saturday morning cartoons they’ll start wising up.”
Steele says that smoking is not the only discipline problem at the school, but it is the worst. “I just want to keep students from smoking in the high school bathrooms. There are other problems, but smoking is by far the biggest one.”
The school board will re-table the issue after a 5-3 vote at its next meeting on March 7. Steele was instructed to return at that time with figures on in-school detentions so far this year.
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