Meeting Story Exercise

A new question pertaining to future disciplinary actions of students at Portsmouth High School was raised amongst the members of the Portsmouth School Board last night.

Instead of students serving entire days in in-house suspension for violating school rules, a motion was made to institute a new policy that would require students in detention to return to schoool on Saturday mornings from 8 a.m. until noon.

School Board member Tim Steele brought the idea to the attention of attendees, and said that to meet the staffing requirements an allocation of about $3,000 wouold need to be set aside in the budget.

"I know this isn't good news for parents," Steele said. "But I hope the threat of Saturday classes will make students think twice before breaking the school rules."

Parent Pegggy Bacon was the first to oppose the motion made by Steele, saying that it really causes an inconvenience to parents, both financially and time wise.

"I work six days a week -- including Saturday morning -- and it's bad enough to gte my son off to school Monday through Friday," Bacon said. "Why should I have to worry about Saturday as well? 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 ruined Saturday's."

Steele said that his main concern is to limit smoking in the Portsmouth school system, as it is the cause for most in-house suspensions. In 1995, 154 students received in-house suspensions, requiring them to spend a day under close faculty supervision in an empty classroom.

Students are not allowed to make up any class time they miss while suspended. Steele added that this way no students would miss any class time or work and still be punished for violating the rules.

Lisa Gallagher, a senior at Portsmouth High School, was in attendance during the discussion. She said that she didn't like the idea because there's nothing preventing students from skipping their punishment sessions.

"I think it's just being done to make life easier for the faculty," she said. "So that they don't have to deal with detentions during the week. Anyway, what if someone skips the session? What are they going to do, make them stay all weekend?"

Steele rebutted by saying that students wouldn't be allowed to return to school until they made up the detention session.

The board voted 5-3 in favor of tabling the issue until March 7, where it will be discussed during the next meeting.