Discipline in our school systems has been, and continues to be the number one problem within schools today. Whether the punishment be to harsh, or not harsh enough, it never seems to fit the crime correctly. Many people blame schools for not letting their students handle their problems, and not letting them be accountable for their actions. Although this may be true, many schools also give to harsh of punishments for the students actions. Here are some past experiences/examples.
It was my junior year of high school, as a cheerleader we all wore our uniforms the day of games, so it must have been a friday. I went threw the lunch line to pay for my drink and the lady at the cash register was sitting there talking to someone, i counted how long she was talking and ignoring the line, it was 11 minutes. Lunches at my highschool were only 22 minutes long. There was 5 minutes left in my lunch until i finally just said excuse me, im going to leave my money right here, and walked out among 5 other kids. Out of a crowd she searched for me, and just me. Asking other students "where the little bitch with the uniform was" and saying "wait till i find her". I was a very respected person in highschool, always helping out, never rude or mean. Finally, i walked up to her and asked her what the problem was and she started fighting with me calling me a little bitch and then im rude and i threw my money at her face. (which was completely false). The principal walked up to us asked what happened, completely ignored anything i had to say and gave me a detention. Even though i apologized and said im sorry if you thought it was rude, but i need to eat. I got in trouble for that, but none of the other kids that did it as well did. Come to find out, she had a bias with cheerleaders and that is why she got me in trouble.
A lot of times, kids make friends with the assistant principal and the principal etc. and when they get in trouble, they just let them go. But if its someone else who does the same exact thing, they get suspended or something taken away from them. No school has a fair discipline system, and it almost seems as though sometimes they just don't feel like dealing with it and blow some things off.
I think a way to really fix it, is to make a set of rules known to all students with the consequences with them. That way, it all moves faster, and it is fair for all, no student can complain about a punishment, or get their way out of it because they have already expected it.
Some sites that i read up on this topic, are:
http://cnx.org/content/m14625/latest/
http://nces.ed.gov/Pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=98030
In my school people would become friends with the principal all the time. And because of this they always got special treatment. I saw the same thing happening in my school. Schools do need to discipline their students the same and treat them like equals.
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