In school suspension: a way for students to get rewarded for their bad behaviors. Students sitting in a quiet room procrastinating because there are none of their teachers there to make sure that they get their work completed.

Today’s disciplinary punishments are just not cutting it anymore. They don’t make the students any less willing to repeat the actions that got them there.

What do students who receive disciplinary punishments actually get out of the punishment? They get to have free time to take naps when they should be in their classes learning more in the very classes that they are trying to avoid.

Students don’t view their punishments as punishments anymore. They now see disciplinary punishments as a way to escape classes and forget about their responsibilities.

Punishments for disciplinary actions should be changed to accommodate whatever the students actions were.

Some parents might object to the changing of punishments for student behaviors. Transportation would be the first reason to reject the idea of new punishments. With the new punishments, parents would have to bring their child to the school for their punishment and then proceed to the pick their child up upon completion or remain and supervise their child for the duration of the punishment.

But for most punishments the student would stay after school and complete the determined punishment by the time the late bus picks up the final students so transportation would not be an issue for this circumstance.

The only time that the parents would have to transport their children to the school for disciplinary reasons would be if the student committed a major action that would not be justified by an after school punishment.

A second rejection to this idea would be safety issues. For this reason, parental supervision is a must for cases of weekend punishments while parental or teacher/coach supervision will be provided for after school punishments.

New punishments would be determined based on what season it is. If it is fall, then punishments can include: cleaning up the stadium after football games, volunteering at swim tournaments and meets, working the concession stand at any school games. Additional punishments include: cleaning locker rooms after games, helping to paint the sets for the play, painting the field lines for football games.

During the winter season, the punishment would be shoveling the sidewalks to the school after it snows.

Spring punishments would include working cross country and field hockey meets and tournaments, painting sets for the musical, and painting the goal lines for soccer games.

Year round punishments would include helping with set up and tear down of school dances, setting up and tearing down title one reading events, working with the janitors after school to clean up the school during their detention time.

Minor disciplinary actions will be served with after school punishments while more major actions will be rewarded with longer weekend punishments.

To better the lives of all students, disciplinary punishments should be changed in the near future.