The Saturday School motion was made by School Board member Tim Steele, who suggested that students who have disciplinary problems during the week should be required to return to school for a special Saturday session.
The weekend detention would be held from 8 a.m. until noon on several Saturdays throughout the year. It would require an allocation of $3,000 per year for staffing.
Mr. Steele explained that the new disciplinary measure is being proposed in an effort to reduce the number of in-house suspensions, which are currently given automatically to students caught smoking inside or outside of Portsmouth High School.
In 1995, 154 students were given in-house suspensions after which they were not permitted to make up the school work that they missed during the day. Steele said that the new program would ensure that students would not have to miss any class time.
Steele’s proposal was met by both positive and negative feedback at the Portsmouth Town Meeting, which was held last night at 7:30. “I work 6 days a week—including Saturday morning—and it’s bad enough to get my son off to school Monday through Friday,” said Peggy Bacon, a parent of one of the students. “Why should I have to worry about Saturday as well?”
Ms. Bacon went on to express her feeling that the Saturday detention would most likely not have any impact on students’ behavior. “I just don’t think it’s going to make any difference, and the parents are going to pay for it—in higher taxes as well as in ruined Saturdays,” she said.
Bob Farley, resident of 64 Elm St., said that he liked the idea 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 Mr. Farley. “Maybe if they have to miss a few Saturday morning cartoons they’ll start wising up.”
Lisa Gallagher, a senior at Portsmouth High School, was one of five high school students in attendance at the meeting. “In 12 years of school I’ve never served a detention, and I don’t intend to. But I don’t like this idea,” said Ms. Gallagher. “I think it’s just being done to make life easier for the faculty, so they don’t have to deal with detentions during the week. Anyway, what if someone skips a session? What are they going to do, make them stay all weekend?”
Mr. Steele assured Ms. Gallagher that if a student skips a Saturday session, he or she would not be allowed to return to school until the detention had been served. This would prevent students from being able to do their class work and would create even more incentive to serve the detention promptly.
After about 30 minutes of discussion, the board voted 5-3 in favor of the new proposal. However, one board member abstained from the vote, tabling the issue until its next meeting on March 7. Steele was instructed to return at that time with figures on in-school detentions so far this year.
Other highlights discussed during the meeting were a retreat for administrators in June; four requests from teachers for leaves of absence in the coming year; a financial report detailing federal budget cuts on the school lunch program; and approval of several school department and food service bills amounting to $13,568.
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