Mr. B’s Blogspot

This week, Mrs. Gomez will be speaking to all students about some of our mid-year discipline statistics. We hope that by keeping students aware of our discipline issues, they will be better prepared to effect positive changes on campus.

Although we have had many detentions served this school year, most are for “low level” offenses. For example there have been 94 detentions issued for dress code this year. Many students ask me why we have a dress code, or why ours is so “strict.” We believe that school-appropriate dress helps maintain an orderly learning environment. We do want school to be fun for kids, but it is a place of learning, and students are expected to dress accordingly. The dress code is published in the student handbook (agenda) each year.

Students have served 52 detentions for horseplay. Again, appropriate peer interactions is part of an orderly learning environment.  When kids push, pull, or shove one another, it creates disruptions and anxiety and undermines the learning environment. Furthermore, horseplay often escalates into something worse. It’s best just to keep your hands to yourself.

There have been 62 detentions issued for “disruptions” and “insubordination” combined. This is a bit more serious. This means that there were 62 incidents of students directly disrupting the learning environment in class and/or being insubordinate (ignoring the rules or requests) to teachers. Unfortunately this seriously undermines the learning environment for the other students, and our teachers take this issue very seriously.

Suspension numbers represent more serious incidents–fighting, assault, theft, etc.–on our campus. 94% of our students have never been suspended, and fewer than 1% of our students are “repeat offenders” of rules resulting in suspension. This means very few kids (only four this year!) get suspended a second time after an incident. This year the greatest number of suspensions have occurred in the sixth grade (16), and most of these (13) have been due to fighting and/or assault. This tells me that this year’s sixth graders have a difficult time resolving conflicts appropriately. They react and lash out rather than talking it out or seeking help from an adult.  There have been six sventh grade suspensions this year, and 13 eighth grade suspensions.

We look at these numbers and talk about them because increasing awareness of a problem is a component of solving the problem. As we continue to work together with students, parents, and teachers, our goal is to reduce discipline problems on the FHMS campus thus resulting in a safer more productive learning environment for all.