"The following people are to see me in my office."
At the sound of these words over the Intercom in the mornings many people
shudder, for they know that the calling of their name may mean detention.
Started three years ago by Mr. Harold Miller, assistant principal, detention
is Grady's way of disciplining students without having to suspend them.
"All that can be done legally to a student is to keep them after school,
suspend them, or verbally reprimand them," says Mr. Miller.
The students sent to detention are usually those who violate rules or misbehave in class but not to the degree that warrants suspension. Whether or not a student is sent to detention depends upon the individual and the problems of the individual. Two students may skip a class and while one gets three days detention the other may get three weeks. "The reason for this," says Mr. Miller, "is that the student that gets three days may be one who we know has problems at home, whereas the student who gets three weeks may have skipped just for kicks."
Students who are law-abiding can usually be worked with or corrected.
Detention, which is used to keep them law-abiding, is a method of trying
to save the student from having his school life mterminated. Sometimes "all
he needs is a good talking to."
Mr. Miller feels that detention is quite effective if the person is capable
of being corrected. If the person is incorruptible, then detention is effective
for him. It warns him that the next time his punishment could be worse.
For other students detention is sometimes just that next step closer to
suspension, which many students surprisingly look forward to.
Although many students have the wrong concept of him, Mr. Miller enjoys his job. He likes it because it allows him to work with young people, even though be would prefer to meet students on more pleasant grounds. This work still gives him the opportunity to better understand teenagers. "The only disadvantage of this job," says Mr. Miller, "is the fact that I don't get very much contact with the 95% of the students that aren't sent to my office."