Make suspension from school productive
On Long Island, when students are temporarily suspended from school, they typically serve out their punishment at home. As mandated by New York State, they are tutored a minimum of two hours a day for five subjects a week. And the rest of the time? Perhaps parents would give them chores to do. Most likely, they'd surf the Internet, watch television, listen to their iPods and basically lounge around the house.
Ethan Mirenberg, a 14-year-old in the Lynbrook school district, is doing lots of time at home - seven months. He was suspended in November after his former teacher accused him of placing her in a headlock and rubbing his knuckles into her head - a "noogie" perhaps, the likes of which Bill Murray would subject Gilda Radner to in old "Saturday Night Live" skits.
Not amused, the school took the teacher's accusation quite seriously and justly suspended the teen for his utterly inappropriate behavior. In a telephone interview his father, William Mirenberg, admits his son violated a code of conduct that absolutely requires a penalty, but he's now appealing the suspension, saying seven months is too severe. And having an effect not only on Ethan.
Working parents especially suffer the consequences of their child's suspension, for they're forced to either take time off from work to supervise the teen while he's home or rely on a support system of family, friends and neighbors to keep an eye on their kid. If an adult is not present in the house when the tutor is to appear every day, the instruction is to take place at a local library. How the student is to get there is not the state or the school's problem, but again, the parents'.
But putting aside the hassle for the adults, what exactly is the lesson to the suspended teen in sending her home? That's the question posed by the Community Drug and Alcohol Task Force (of which I am a member), formed last year by parents and educators in my school district, Northport-East Northport. Alarmed by continually increasing drug and alcohol abuse by our youth, and particularly after several young adults died of heroin overdoses, members of my community came together for the grand task of combating this epidemic. Or at least curtailing it. The task force has already conducted child and parent drug and alcohol perception/reality surveys and hosted educational forums to present the results.
But one of our first undertakings was to address the issue of suspended teens. When teens are suspended from high school for drug- or alcohol-related issues, and, if both parents are working outside the home, the risk-taking teen often is left unsupervised. But even when illegal substances are not the issue, there's no value in spending unproductive periods of time in one's house.
This current system has been in place for decades, yet it's clearly ineffective. "It's a punitive gesture with no supportive action for the students," says John Lynch, executive director for pupil services and a member of the task force.
So last fall my school district implemented an Alternative Home Instruction Program in which suspended students spend their days at an off-campus site (the district's administration building), where they not only receive instruction from a specially assigned teacher and assistant teacher, but also get 45 minutes of daily counseling by a social worker.
The cost of this program is just about a wash, Lynch explains, because under the regular suspension system tutors are paid an hourly wage for the state-mandated home instruction. The money once used to pay them now funds the small, full-time staff of the Alternative Home Instruction Program, which meets for full days during a typical suspension of three to five days, with about eight students a week.
The program, while still in its infancy, is getting good reviews from parents. They are assured that their kids are in a safe, supportive, supervised and productive environment. Most important, with counseling, the troubled teens are apt to develop a sense of accountability and an understanding of their behavior, which gives them a better chance of success once they return to school. Ultimately, these kids also will have a better chance of becoming successful members of their communities.
Speaking of which, Lynch says he's been receiving inquiring calls from school districts across Long Island as word spreads about this innovative program. Perhaps even the Lynbrook School District will consider it, relieving Ethan Mirenberg not of his suspension, but of spending the lengthy sentence within the confines of his home.
Claudia Copquin
19 February 2008
http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-opcop195583282feb19,0,5026659.story