Most afternoons, from three to four, students can be seen sitting begrudgingly in either the library or U302 under the watchful eye of librarians and teachers. Only the sounds of keyboards clacking and an occasional rustling of a history textbook can be heard from across the room.
Although detention is something most students would prefer to avoid, the current model could be significantly improved to benefit students and the community.
The crimes that currently land a student in detention vary vastly in degrees of severity. The detainees comprise dress-code violators, phone users, honor code offenders, tardy offenders, and a litany of other wrongdoers.
Many students across the academy debate the validity of such offenses. However, one thing is true: whatever those transgressions may be, there must be some way to hold people accountable.
“There has to be some mechanism for the institution to enforce rules,” Mr. Rod Thomas, school librarian and detention overseer, said. “There are different things that probably deserved to be handled differently. I don’t equate somebody who’s here because of lateness or lunch duty on the same level as someone who has an honor offense.”
Indeed, having some level of prevention is key to a functioning community, but is sitting in a room for an hour in silence without headphones the best and most efficient way to punish a student?
“When I first came here [GA], the teachers who did detention would take the kids out and clean up the campus,” Mr. Thomas said. “It’s something that benefits the community, and may or may not be a good time for everybody.”
Mandatory community service rather than detention could serve as a substitute for students who don’t want to sit in detention, especially if they are a second-semester senior with no pressing homework, but this solution also increases the burden on the teacher.
“It’s an hour of their time,” Mr. Thomas said. “Can you imagine going out in this weather to pick up trash?”
I believe that a hybrid model could help address both the inefficiency of detention time and the heterogeneity of offenses. Smaller-scale misdeeds, such as a dress code violation or phone usage during school hours, could be punished with a standard detention.
On the other hand, honor offenses and violations of that level could be addressed by the former model of community service. By rethinking detention as an hour of contribution, the academy can make better use of both students’ and teachers’ time.