Santiago High School has enforced new 2023-2024 school year rules. Last year, there was a big issue with tardies and students being late to school and classes. Because of this continuous problem, the administration has decided to enforce stricter rules about tardiness through Minga. They will not tolerate being late at any time, whether 1 minute or 10. I believe these punishments are unfair, and here is why.

If you are late to class any time, lunch detention is the first consequence. This is entirely unfair because individual students have different circumstances. Punishing students for being late without considering the reasons behind their tardiness plays a significant role when considering how to discipline students. For example, students with disabilities or those who rely on public transportation are more likely to be late than not, and they have no control over this. Another reason is for personal issues such as relationships. If a child carpools or has a bad relationship with their parents, it is difficult to ask for rides; they have no control or choice.

Another disadvantage of lunch detention is it takes away from students’ lunchtime. Lunch time allows students to socialize and relax, taking a break from all their classes in the middle of the day. Taking away this time can hurt their well-being and might even affect their academic status. It can create undue stress and disrupt their daily routines, especially since it takes 10 minutes of their lunchtime. Missing 1 minute of class should not result in a 10-minute punishment. Another argument is that even though it is your first time being late to class, you would get punished automatically. Not all delays are the result of a student’s actions. Sometimes, students have legitimate reasons for being late, such as a previous class running over time or unexpected circumstances. Enforcing an automatic 10-minute lunch detention doesn’t show pity or consider anything and treats all delays as if they were intentional.

Another punishment is Saturday School. You can get a more severe punishment by not showing up to lunch detention or repeatedly misbehaving. Saturday School as a punishment for missing lunch detention doesn’t effectively fix the issue or reason for punishment in the first place. It serves as a mere punishment rather than focusing on correcting their behavior or helping students learn from their mistakes. Also, merely missing lunch detention and making a student attend Saturday School for a long time isn’t balanced or proportional. Saturday school often lacks structure compared to regular school days. It’s also very inconvenient for both the student and teacher to come during their day off to return to work. There could be a lack of staff and admin that doesn’t make Saturday School very effective without proper guidance or assistance.

Overall, even though we know that the staff and administration are just doing their job, they need to understand from a student’s perspective that even though they think they are doing the right thing by just giving continuous punishments, they aren’t solving the issue with the student themself to help prevent them from making the same mistake again. They should learn to take better action and control the situation, which teaches the student to learn to do the right thing and take responsibility to come to class on time.