New Policies Proposed to School Board Leave Residents Upset

The Portsmouth School Board held a meeting yesterday at 7:30 p.m. The board was able to get to business after a moment of silence, the Pledge of Allegiance., and officiating of the minutes from January 24th’s meeting.
After the usual business, the meeting moved onto new business, School Board member Tim Steele pushed for an approval of a new school policy dealing with disciplinary problem students. The new rule would require students who have disciplinary problems during the week to attend a Saturday morning session running from 8 a.m. to noon. If approved, this would require an allocation around $3,000 per year for staffing.
Peggy Bacon, a parent objected to the proposal during the meeting, “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 Saturday as well.”
Steele responded to Bacon’s concerns saying that the new policy would help reduce in-house suspensions. These suspensions are the result of students caught smoking inside or outside of the high school. Steel said, “I know this isn’t good news for parents, but I hope the threat of Saturday classes will make the students think twice before breaking the school rules.”
Lisa Gallagher, a senior at Portsmouth High School disagreed with Steele, “I don’t like this idea. I think it’s just being done to make life easier for the faculty… what if someone skips a session? What are they going to do, make them stay all weekend”?
Steele clarified that students who skip the sessions won’t be able to return to school until the detention has been served. Resident Bob Farley agreed with Steel’s policy, “Parents can whine all they want about this… parents aren’t teaching their any discipline, so the kids have no respect for rules.”
The board voted 5-3 on the issue and Steele was told to return to the next meeting on March 7.