This school year, students will no longer be sitting in silence in one of GA’s Upper School classrooms every day after-school. That is because this past summer, the GA Upper School changed the time in which detentions occur from after school to lunch.
This poses a question: what are the actual benefits of switching detention from after school to lunch? We believe switching the detention time from after-school to lunch is better for GA and students.
Lunch detentions are a significantly less severe punishment than after school detentions. For most people who accidentally committed a tiny offense and got a detention, this change is a huge improvement. They don’t get severely penalized for something small, like not wearing a keycard. On top of not carrying the social stigma of after school detentions as a more feared punishment, they also take place in the school day, without sacrificing any time or activities outside of school.
“So we found out that it was pretty well-attended, and with detention, the idea of enforcing it as day of, next day sort of thing, and so having it at lunch is more accessible for everyone.” Dean of Students Mr. Steven Moll said.
It also makes travel significantly easier, as after school detentions could throw off transportation methods like taking the bus, which could create a tricky problem for families.
“There’s no doctor’s appointments, sports, that kind of thing.” Mr. Moll says. “So the expectation now that we have it four days a week is that you get a sign of detention, you serve type of thing, so it kind of twofold helps out with after-school obligations and accountability.”
Of course, this change has its downsides too. Because lunch detentions are perceived as not a big deal, students could be less scared of detentions, and therefore not fear getting into trouble as much. This could reduce the overall behavior of the student body.
However, it still does have disciplinary weight behind it, as students are forced to sacrifice their lunch periods, normally spent with their friends.
This change poses one severe issue, which is the general decrease in behavior of the student body. However, this isn’t an impossible issue. If the behavior worsens, GA could add on other disciplinary actions such as mandated study halls and not granting privileges, like no off-campus privileges. By adding on these additional punishments, consequences could be as harsh as the old after school detentions, without making students sacrifice their after-school activities.
The punishment is still there, but it is not harsh to the point where they are forced to sacrifice time outside of school to make up for a tiny mistake.
For most Upper School students, this is a victory scenario as now students do not have to deal with sacrificing time. But this article finally concludes that switching detention times