The vast majority of students in the Richmond County School system study, do their homework and focus on learning.

A few don’t.

When that happens the school system has a policy in place to deal with the situation. A new version of that policy came up for discussion this week at the school board meeting.

We respect those who feel that policies should carry specific punishments, but we believe that principals should have the final say.

Under the old policy, a second offense for fighting at school carried a mandatory 10 days suspension for the second and third offenses. The new policy gives the principal a range of one to 10 days for the second offense and five to 10 days for the third offense. It makes sense to offer principals an option on the severity of the punishment to fit the severity of the crime.

Some aren’t quite so sure.

“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. (George) 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?”

We understand the concern, but the devil is in the details of setting down the criteria.

Associate Superintendent Dr. Robert Beck offered just a small example.

In one case, kids 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. 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.”

“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,” said Superintendent Dr. George Norris.

Unless the school board wants to don black robes and convene a daily “school court” to hear testimony on disciplinary cases, let’s let the principals hand out the punishment. If they have to field phone calls at home, well that’s part of the job of being a school board member. If the principals are found to be out of line, then the board and the superintendent need to take action, but for now let’s let the principals run their schools.