Schenevus Central School’s Arbitrary Justice System
In an article titled “School Chief Defends Suspension” appearing in Wednesday’s edition of The Daily Star, we get a glimpse of another failed disciplinary policy - or lack of one. Unfortunately, this example is just a stone’s throw away in Schenevus:
The superintendent of Schenevus Central School said Tuesday there is no set penalty for students who fight on campus. [ed. note: bold added]
Three students were suspended for two days after a two-on-one altercation Monday sent one of them to the hospital with a broken nose and teeth.
Superintendent Lynda Bookhard deserves the heat she’s taking over this issue. Read on:
The administration has discretion to set penalties when a student violates the school’s code of conduct, Superintendent Lynda Bookhard said as she discussed the two-day suspension given to the three boys.
Discretion is a good thing in justice; some offenses are worse than others and punishment should be amended to reflect that. But there’s no minimum punishment, no comprehensive policy at Schenevus?
The mother of the boy attacked by two others isn’t pleased:
But Sperbeck’s mother said she thinks the school’s punishment is too lenient, and she doesn’t understand why her son faces the same level of discipline.
“They attacked him,” Michelle Sperbeck said. “They hit him in the face.”
Bookhard declined to speak specifically about the fight or why all three students were disciplined, but she defended her actions.
“I am not going to reveal the whys and wherefores, but I have good reason,” the superintendent said.
We don’t know the details of the incident and Bookhard is right not to discuss them [and, obviously, she can't]. She’ll realize after this incident that it’s much easier to have a solid policy and explain why she’s deviating from it than it is to create a policy every time and attempt to justify it. Someone is going to consider it too arbitrary - many times that’s true - and the criticism will flow. Then she won’t have to resort to smarmy, smug comments in defense of herself.
There’s a philosophical travesty buried later in the article:
She said a longer period of suspension is no guarantee of punishment for a student who break the rules.
“The bottom line is, if a child is out of school for five days, parents can’t stay home for five days,” Bookhard said.
She said suspended students could end up spending their suspension unsupervised.
“Is it a punishment?” Bookhard asked.
Oh, now I see, Superintendent Bookhard. If the offender has violated many students’ rights to an education without disruption - and this is an incident that will for weeks waste time and resources to varying degrees within the classroom and District - we wouldn’t want to commit the sin of exclusion, even if it’s at the expense of every other student in the school. Common sense dictates that the welfare of many outweighs the welfare of one, especially when that one has caused the issue unnecessarily.
And parents can’t stay home for five days, but they can stay home for two? Ask the average parent if that’s easy to do on short notice. Bookhard’s rationale here is on the level of a student I had the other day who reacted to my disciplining another student by saying, “You shouldn’t do that, he’s just going to hate you.”
If the Superintendent is so concerned about suspension just being a week of tv-watching instead of a real consequence for actions, implement in-school suspension and take care of the problem directly.
