The Way it Should Be!

The principal and assistants will be greeting the students at the door each morning and will walk the halls every moment of every day. If students walk towards the door out of dress code, they won’t pass through it. Students will have a right to the halls only if they are in proper attire. The disruption of electrical devices, inappropriate clothing and other peripherals will disappear. Language will be clean, appropriate and respectful. Students will address adults as Sir, Ma’am, Mr. or Mrs. They will not use words such as dude, dawg, or man in any conversations directed at adults. They can save that for the beach, the mall or their own back yards. Wouldn’t it be great to enter classrooms where the words, “Please”, and “Thank you”, will be embedded within the dynamics of meaningful learning?

Students that break the rules will face consequences every time. There will be no warnings, two-week adjustment periods, negotiations or deals. The warning is put in place the day the student is handed the student handbook. If it is a policy established by the school board, we will enforce it. Student consequences will be effective. Detentions will be served with a purpose. These students will scrub the desks, clean the walls, pick up the garbage and scrape gum from places they put it. If they must sit in a desk, they will write and write and write until they get it right! Major infractions will lead to suspensions and Saturday Detentions. If the infraction involved defiance or verbal abuse toward a staff member, the student will not return without a parent conference and a thoughtful apology written to the teacher.

Discipline will become the norm not the exception. Students will be on time in the morning and for every class. Students will take up the four minutes between the classes to get to class, utilize the rest room and get into their seats. They don’t need to talk to their friends, exchange hellos and greetings, and scurry to their locker. They need to plan ahead and prepare for the whole school day. There will be time for socializing before school, at lunch and after school gets out. Other than that it should be six hours of hard work, intellectual challenge, and critical skills development. They will engage their brain cells from bell to bell. Students will bring their tools of learning to class every day. No longer will well-planned lessons by teachers be tossed away because half the class doesn’t come prepared with pencil, paper, and books. I will not accept a statement from any parent or child that they can’t afford or have that paper or pencil when a cell phone or I-Pod is hanging out of the child’s pocket. Students should expect to be exhausted by 2:30 every day because of working brains not because of wasted hours of useless conversation, doodling or late night Facebook chats with friends.