Cantr II Discussion Forum

A public school is requiring detention for parents who get their kids to school late.

Under the new rule at the Manhattan School for Children, parents who don’t drop off their children by 8:25 a.m. have to pick up late slips from the principal’s office and go to the auditorium to serve 20 minutes of detention with them.

“The parents need to make the breakfast, get the children dressed and get them to school on time,” principal Susan Rappaport told the New York Post for Sunday’s editions.

Some tardy parents at the school, which has 660 pupils in kindergarten through eighth grade, complained the detention made them late for work. But others approved, saying they felt humiliated and won’t show up late again

Okay, now this is pushing things too far I think. Has anyone else heard about this? I wonder if the school is ready to hand out money for all the possible lawsuites that can be launched against it.

Depends what you want your kids to turn out like.

If you want little anarchists who will spend half their life in jail, flount the rules, drop 'em late tell the head teacher to go screw her rules...

If you want conformists who will fit in with the system and perform well in our consumerist society and go on to university I say show your kids a good example and if you accidentally are late rake your punishemnt like a grown-up and look suitably humble.

If you choose the former, don't be suprised if you are the first one your kids steal from.... If you choose the latter at least think your little citizens will be in a position to look after you comfortably when you're old, can't go to the toilet on your own and need some paid immigrants to after you!

Considering the congestion one has to deal with in the city, I don't know if it's really fair to punish anybody (besides the gridlockers). But I find it to be an interesting concept, if not amusing.

From the way I understand it, parents don't have to send their children to that school if they don't like the policy.

I fail to see where lawsuits would come into play? I mean if you can't sue your doctor for making you wait hours on end, I cannot see how a school can be sued for making you spend 20 minutes to teach you a lesson you didn't learn when you went to school.

And while we're at it, let's make first offence thefts punishable by death. That'll show 'em.

There is such a thing as going too far to solve a relitively insignificant problem.

Nakranoth, I totally agree the rules are overkill, but what kind of example to parents show their kids when they basically treat school rules like they don't exist and then talk about suing the school...

I think a lot of the laws in this world are unjust, petty or plain daft but without them there is no social cohesion. Kids have so few boundaries nowadays as it is, parents and schools should at least be trying to cooperate on these things..

but...my mom dosen't drop me off at school. My brother does.

nitefyre wrote::lol:

I fail to see where lawsuits would come into play? I mean if you can't sue your doctor for making you wait hours on end, I cannot see how a school can be sued for making you spend 20 minutes to teach you a lesson you didn't learn when you went to school.

With todays society can you honestly say there wont be some sort of lawsuit?

If parents start showing up to work late b/c of that law, that seriously effects thier ability to find and keep jobs, then when parents become unemployed b/c of it, they can no longer pay for thier kid's food and school supplies. It will ofcourse also create hostile domestic enviornments leading to things like child abuse and negligence. Ofcourse! it's such a perfect system. Everybody knows this country needs more child abuse and negligence. It also meens we can reduce tardyness to boot. It's a win win situation.

Is this an elementary or middle/high-school?




On one hand I can see where this is a nice punnishment. No offense meant, but it really irks me when people say they're going to be somewhere and they show up late. If you say you're going to be somewhere at some specific time, be there. I don't care if it's a dentist appointment/school function/a date. My mom was never late. We left early and arrived early or on time but we never arrived late for anything. Especially school. (Not that she had to drive us, we walked up the hill about 2 blocks. And before that my oldest brother walked with me until I became old enough to walk myself.) But she made sure I was up on time, that I went to bed early and she had my lunch money on the counter as well as had me put my backpack in a specific place so we always knew where it was. We left with enough time to get to the school, my mom knowing how much kids like to dawdle.



I grant you that there are certainly reasons people end up late by no fault of their own and that noone can be perfect every-day. I also grant you that teenagers are probably harder to get to school on time than an elementary child.

Nosajimiki wrote:If parents start showing up to work late b/c of that law, that seriously effects thier ability to find and keep jobs, then when parents become unemployed b/c of it, they can no longer pay for thier kid's food and school supplies. It will ofcourse also create hostile domestic enviornments leading to things like child abuse and negligence. Ofcourse! it's such a perfect system. Everybody knows this country needs more child abuse and negligence. It also meens we can reduce tardyness to boot. It's a win win situation.

And maybe it could have quite the opposite effect. Where-in parents actually spend time with the child making sure the night before that the child is ready for school before bed.

Well don't you come from a pleasent sounding familly. Personally, I was walking 18 blocks, weather be damned, and my parents expected me to get my own self up because before school care often started after my dad was already at work. When I was young my legally blind mother had to get all 6 of us to behave, get dressed cleaned up and out the door and safely across those before mentioned numerious intersections rellying on our abilities to see oncoming traffic. Now if your parents are working some plesent 9-5 makeing decent wages, then yeah, they should be able to get you to school on time, but since some parents have to work 6-8(am to pm) as an average day just to makes sure all thier kids have the essentials or other extinuating circumstances exist, then you can see how this law is rediculus.

[edit] just to be clear, I dont meen to get on you about anything about your family specificly, I can't claim to know them, but from what you have discribed there are very different perspectives to concider.

You will love what's been happening in the UK then..

Over her its is compulsory to attend school and it is the parents responnsibility untill the age of 16 to get them there. Truancy (absence from school) is perceived as such a problem that a number of parents have served time in prison for their teenagers failure to go to school - it works too!

see here

or here

People can go to jail for that here too...

Anyways, I dont have kids so I cant really say how much of a hassle it is to get them ready for school, and I was home schooled from 7th untill I graduated, so I cant really recall how much of a hassle it was to get to school. What I can say is that although I dont agree with the schools doing so, I think that the parents need to be more responsible. Sure, parents work their different hours and such, but that is life. If you cant handle taking care of the kids, then dont have them.

Phalynx wrote:Depends what you want your kids to turn out like.

If you want little anarchists who will spend half their life in jail, flount the rules, drop 'em late tell the head teacher to go screw her rules...

Bollocks.

I used to be regularly late - punctuality has never been one of my strong points.
I may flout rules - But i'm no jailbait.

I'd certainly see myself as much more well-adjusted than some conformist, consumerist drone...


Anyway, I have deep worries about the school system in general.
There are some things about schooling that are so generally accepted, that no one questions them.


We attempt to control children by constraining them in a school environment which is heavy with rules, regulations and structure. As anyone will know, the more you try and constrain young people, the more they resist. Should we really be trying to 'control' them anyway - is that the right attitude to take?

Secondly, the teacher is the dictator, the autocrat of the classroom. Respect and power is demanded by school staff. Descisions are final, with no consultation.
No one would be allowed to run a small office like that, let alone a business, local authority or country.


Anyway, as for the topic.
They shouldn't be driving their kids to school. It creates needless pollution and congestion.
Secondly, punctuality is over-rated. The world would be a better place without wristwatches.

Phalynx wrote:Over her its is compulsory to attend school and it is the parents responnsibility untill the age of 16 to get them there. Truancy (absence from school) is perceived as such a problem that a number of parents have served time in prison for their teenagers failure to go to school - it works too!

No it doesn't.

Locking parents up for allowing their children to truant is just pointless.

There are clearly some issues within the family, if the parents aren't able or unwilling to ensure regular attendance. Locking the parents up isn't going to solve those issues.

Fining them isn't going to solve it either.


And, anyway, at the end of the day, it is the child's choice.
Regardless of what their parents do or don't do, the child clearly doesn;t want to go to school - that's the bigger problem.
The focus should be on finding out why the kid doesn't want to go to school, why they are truanting - and solving that.


Note, I'm not picking on you Phal, just, your statements remind me of things...

Phalynx wrote:I think a lot of the laws in this world are unjust, petty or plain daft but without them there is no social cohesion.

This reminds me of one of my favourite quotes, although I can't remember the authour now...
"School is all about making children conform to rules which make no sense. In preparation for a life full of rules which make no sense".

Social cohesion is quite possible without needless regulations.

Kids have so few boundaries nowadays as it is, parents and schools should at least be trying to cooperate on these things..

So few boundaries?
Really?
What, so there were more boundaries before schooling was compulsory?
There were more boundaries when children were sent to work?
There were more boundaries when children were allowed to play without adult supervision, on streets and elsewhere?


Childhood is under so much restriction, surveillance, endless scrutiny and criticsm - never before has there been so much attempt to control and boundary children and childhood.