Richmond County Daily Journal
When does fighting warrant a slap on the wrist and when does it warrant expulsion? Does one sip of beer equate to being under the influence of alcohol?
The ethical issue of how much discretion a principal should have in doling out disciplinary action to students came to light in a 20-minute discussion by members of the Richmond County Board of Education and Richmond County Schools administrative officials Tuesday night.
The discussion was sparked by the revision of the district policy on short and long-term suspension, and led to the board’s decision to let principals use looser guidelines in the punishment they render for county students.
The policy in question Tuesday was Policy Code 4302, “Discipline Code and School Plan for Management of Student Behavior.”
When the floor was opened for discussion or a motion to approve revisions to the policy, board member Tom McInnis asserted many changes had been made, and offenses which carried mandatory punishments like three or 10-day out-of-school suspensions had been changed to allow for a range from one to three days, or one to 10 days.
“My concern is we’re opening ourselves up to being called at home by someone who feels their child’s been treated unfairly,” Mcinnis said. “There’s a lot of difference between days certain versus days uncertain.”
Vice Chairman Kenneth Goodman agreed with McInnis.
“Mr. McInnis has a very strong point there,” he said. “Would it be wise, Dr. Norris, for us to have some sort of criteria to assess what will be a one day suspension, or what will be three or what will be five days?”
“There are so many different circumstances around these types of things that we feel that our principals should be able to look at the whole picture and use discretion in how students are disciplined,” Richmond County Schools Superintendent Dr. George Norris said.
Board member Pamela Easterling then entered the discussion.
“In a lot of the cases, are the principals or the assistant principals not looking at the past to see if this student’s been in trouble before?” she asked the superintendent. “I mean, maybe this is the first offense of one of our young men or young women. Maybe this is a young man who, maybe they got in a fight, but this is the first time they’ve ever been in trouble. Even though you’ve got Johnny, who got the worst end of it, and you’ve got Jimmy who’s never been in trouble, but Johnny provoked him ... Jimmy shouldn’t get 10 days, and that’s the way I feel about it.”
“I agree with you too,” Goodman replied. “I just think the discretion should be limited to some degree. There’s a big difference between one day and 10 days, and there should be some sort of basis in fact.”
“I agree,” Easterling said.
“And you’re right in saying there are differences, but there does have to be some sort of measuring stick,” Goodman said.
“There’s a lot of room for interpretation between using discretion and favoritism, and a lot of times it can be merely in the eyes of the beholder,” said board member Ed Ormsby. “Basically, to address this, we need a policy that has the benefit of having some regulations and guidelines for administration.”
After several discussion points, board chairman Bruce Stanback chimed in.
“I think what we need to do is hold our principals accountable for the decisions they make,” he said. “I know, we’ve had discussions in the past where students might not have deserved 10 days, but 10 days was the policy. I think we need to lean on our principals to make sure that this is something that is distributed evenly to everybody in our schools.”
“We have had these discussions with our principals, and we have cautioned them on the use of discretion in handing out punishments,” RCS Associate Superintendent Dr. Robert Beck said.
He used the example of fighting to illustrate his point, describing three different incidents of fighting in one day.
In one, he and McInnis were horse-playing in the hall and slapping the back of each others’ heads.
In another two punches are thrown by one boy and the fight is broken up immediately with no damage done, and in the final scenario both boys go at it full throttle and knock each other out.
“Now I didn’t write this policy,” Beck said. “The committee we had to study the policies suggested these changes, but everything is not written in black and white. The committee thought that principals ought to be considered professional enough to make these choices, and do it in a professional manner and administer them the right way.”
Beck then cited a case before the Supreme Court concerning a zero tolerance policy.
“I think Mr. McInnis’s concern is more that one child will receive favorable treatment, while another child does not,” Goodman answered.
Beck then cited the example of using profanity as another example to delineate the difference between saying a four-letter word or using a string of four-letter words.
He also pointed out that when he was a principal, he had a teacher who would write kids up for looking at each other wrong, requiring the use of discretion on his part as a principal.
McInnis then pointed out the high school policy on being under the influence of alcohol or another substance, and that of possession of paraphernalia carries one to 10 days of out-of-school suspension on the first, second and third offenses.
“I think we ought to maintain a hard line and a zero tolerance policy on anything having to do with illegal drugs or alcohol in our schools,” he said. “We don’t want the idea to get out there, if you get caught with a little marijuana it’ll be one day out, and if you get caught with something else it might be three days out.”
Subsequent conversation led into a discussion of the legality of these issues, whether the incident should be reported to the police and the use of discretion in reprimanding the guilty student.
Norris illustrated the moral conundrum presented with an example of a student bringing alcohol to a school dance, becoming obviously drunk, and letting five other students imbibe a swallow or two that doesn’t impair their motor skills or have obvious effect on their normal functions.
“What we’re really trying to look at is the degree of involvement,” Dr. Norris said. “And a lot of times, when I get those types of calls from people they are misinformed.”
He said they will cite other children getting three day suspensions when their child got 10, and it either won’t be true or a large piece of the puzzle is missing.
A motion was entered and seconded to approve the policy change, and was affirmed by Stanback, Goodman, board member Wiley Mabe and Easterling while McInnis and Ormsby dissented.
Board member Cathy Wilson was not present to vote.
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