Proposed School Board policy threatens to drag misbehaving students away from weekend cartoons, parents out of bed, and tax increases in response to possible required Saturday school.

School Board member Tim Steele highlighted the importance of disciplining students during the School Board meeting this past Monday evening. In the form of a Saturday morning session policy, the new disciplinary measure would require students to attend from 8 a.m. until noon for several weekends during the year.

Local parent, Peggy Bacon, expressed concerns for this proposal as it would inconvenient her own work schedule.

“I work six days a week – including Saturday morning – and it’s bad enough to get my son off to school Monday through Friday. Why should I have to worry about Saturdays as well?” said Bacon.

Contrary to Bacon, resident Bob Farley expressed his approval of the new rules.

“Parents can whine all they want about this, but maybe it’s time parents in America were made to take a little responsibility for their kids,” said Farley. “Parents aren’t teaching their kids any discipline, so the kids have no respect for rules. Maybe if they have to miss a few Saturday morning cartoons they’ll start wising up.”

Steele expressed hope that the new policy would reduce in-house suspensions, particularly to those found smoking on campus. “The new program,” said Steele, “would mean that the student would miss no class time.”

In response to this proposal, student and senior at PHS Lisa Gallagher shard her opinion on where the benefits and disadvantages would lie.

“In 12 years of school I’ve never served a detention, and I don’t intend to. I think [this idea] is just being done to make life easier for the faculty, so they don’t have to deal with detentions during the week,” said Gallagher. “Anyway, what if someone skips the session? What are [teachers] going to do, make them stay all weekend?”

According to Steele, students who skipped the Saturday School session would not be allowed to return to school until the detention has been served.

The thirty-minute discussion ended with a board vote of 5-3 to table the issue. The meeting will continue on March 7 with Steele providing figures on in-school detentions for the current year.

“I know this isn’t good news for parents,” said Steele, “but I hope the threat of Saturday classes will make the students think twice before breaking the school rules.”