Without discipline, education suffers

Jim Blockey, Las Vegas

Monday, April 21, 2008 | 2:02 a.m.

Regarding Emily Richmond’s April 14 stories about alternative schools in the Clark County School District:

I write this as an American citizen who truly loves these kids, not as one who has been a teacher in alternative education for 17 years and in one of the continuation schools for the past six.

I do not understand why no one can figure out why there is so much violence and so many expulsions in our schools today.

When students get to alternative schools, it is a reunion for many of them. Students are disrespectful, disruptive and disobedient, and little is done to them for their misbehavior. Many times the offenses they commit here pale in comparison to what they did to get expelled in the first place. The students who are trying to get a fresh start and get away from the bad influences do not show up to the alternative schools because they are afraid of the students who do show up.

Alternative schools should not be more fun, where the teacher has to tell you the answer to make you happy. That is not a deterrent; that is an incentive for children to misbehave so they too can get expelled.

Alternative schools should have little emphasis on academics (be more of tutoring than credit bearing), and the major emphasis should be on their behavior, such as discipline, respect for authority and self control. They should be run more like boot camps, and I cannot tell how many parents of these students have asked me where they can find a boot camp to send their child.

Children are starving for parameters and they are not getting them. School violence will continue to escalate until we start caring enough about kids to punish them, treat them like kids and not like our friends or equals.

Kids do not test the parameters to break the rules; they test the parameters to make sure they are there. When the parameters are there, kids feel safe and secure; when the parameters are not, kids escalate their behavior until they find them.