Suspension

Recently, I have observed a class in a public school, I was really surprised that 12 students in grade two were suspended for two days because they were causing problems and not studying.
New research shows that sending kids home from school as punishment may do more harm than good, yet most school districts continue to use out-of-school suspensions even for  minor disciplinary issues even though they tend to actually exacerbate problem behaviors and also may lead to academic problems. Further, out-of-school suspensions are not fairly applied. Reasons why out-of-school suspensions don’t work are fairly obvious. Giving students what amounts to a free day or two off doesn't actually feel like punishment for most kids, especially those who may already be hostile towards school to begin with. But if the student then misses school work, his or her grades will decline, further increasing the student’s detachment from the academic environment. Out-of-school suspensions leave kids at home unsupervised and able to cause more problems. And they also do nothing to teach appropriate alternative behavior nor address underlying issues that may be causing the bad behavior.
 In fairness, schools often struggle to find alternatives for kids whose discipline problems are truly serious and who may disrupt the learning environment for other students. Some schools have implemented either in-school suspension or Saturday suspension (effectively a Saturday detention) so that students are not rewarded by being excused from school and won’t miss out on schoolwork.