Chances are if you take a look at a high school handbook and look down through a summary for consequences you will find  out of school suspensions somewhere in there. out of School suspension are a commonly acceptable form of punishment  through out the country. The main idea behind the punishment is that the said inappropriate behaviour the student has done has created a climate substantially and materially disruptive to the learning environment. While this seems like sound logic at first glance, this form of discipline is often not beneficial to the students rehabilitation and safety.

This is because when a child is suspended they are forced to be  at home and if you leave a child unsupervised during the day they are likely to be doing anything but the class work they are  missing.  According to the American Academy of Pediatrics “Children who are suspended are often from a population that is the least likely to have supervision at home… [while at the same time are in] the most in need of adult supervision.” The suspended student is going to  probably be participating in  some kind of   unproductive activity.

In fact, a study from the Center for Diseases Control and prevention found “that when students were not in school, they were more likely to smoke, use alcohol, and engage in sexual intercourse.” It seems ridiculous to force kids out of school and into an environment where they are likely make destructive decisions. A schools purpose for disciplining a student, should be to maintain a safe learning environment for all, but it should also be to ensure the rehabilitation of the offender and reduce likely hood for repeat offense.

Regrettably this does not seem to be the case in many schools across America. According to the national education statistics center in 2006  more than 3 million students were suspended. It is appalling that that many students would ever be kept from attending school probably one of the safest place for a youth to be. Schools need to work to find alternative ways to punish children besides sending them home.

One method that has shown much promise is in-school suspensions. In-school suspensions have been shown to decrease the likelihood for repeat offenses and the offender stays in school. One of the strongest arguments for in school can be found in the dissertation report by Larry Leaply (1997). This study found there can be a positive modification of student behavior that can be brought about from in school suspension policies; schools in the program found a significant decrease in disruptive behavior and suspension rates.

For many schools out-of-school suspension is the easiest way to discipline a student because it takes much of the responsibility from the school and puts it onto the family at home, but schools need to what’s better for the students well-being even if it take more involvement on the schools part. To me nothing seems better than using in-school suspension, the student is in a controlled setting so they could not disrupt the school community, they are in a room with a teacher who would be encouraging them to actually do something productive with there time, and most importantly of all since there are school there not gonna making decisions that will put them deeper in the whole.