.. ails. The country needs those cells to put other prisoners.
The teenager should have at least a chance at probation before the teenager is sent directly to prison. Moreover, it is no concern of the state to be sending a truant student into jail. Especially when it takes the student away from the school that, they need to be attending. It defeats the purpose of keeping kids in school. There is another punishment for a truant student in Potter County is wearing Pink T-shirts. Marvin Mitchell, one of Potter Countys justices of the peace, sees the shirts as a last-resort.
The front of the pink T-shirt says, “Dont Be Like Me”. The back of the back have “Because of his truancy, Ed am at risk of dropping out of school, being involved in a gang, using or selling drugs, becoming a criminal and being incarcerated. Four students agreed to the proposed plan, three people disagreed, and two people were undecided. The way that Marvin Mitchell would like to handle the truancy problem is to talk to the students and if that does not work then he would try to do something else. The thing is that if the students would want him to talk to them then they would talk to him.
Of the students that Ed had talked, to the most common excuse was “the phone dialer must be broken.” Some other common excuses that were given to the parents are, “the teacher didnt see me,” “I did come in tardy, I guess he/she didnt see me come in late.” The boldest, lease used one of them all was, do not worry about, it is fine, trust me. All of these excuses were used to help the parents not be too concerned with what the teenager was doing while the truant student was not in school. The last one, it is alright, dont worry about it, it is fine, trust me, would be the one that the parents should like the most but most of the time that one just gets you into more trouble. If you use the excuses like, the phonedialer is broken, it will sometimes work, and the excuse working depends on if the other schools call your house the way that Hillcrest does Eds house. The West Jordan phonedialer even called his house on Thanksgiving. Eds parents do not care if the phonedialer calls any more.
They will check power grade. When a parent is paranoid of the student sloughing, and then gets a call from the school, the student automatically, will get yelled at by the parents even before the parents ask the student if they missed school or not. The best reason that Ed could think of that Ed would give a teacher for the morning classes is that his alarm clock did not go off and Ed did not wake up until late morning. The excuse that Ed would always give his later classes is that there was a train crossing and Ed could not get by the train. Most of the time it seemed like the excuses worked.
Sometimes the teachers could have cared less. The only bad part is that no matter what excuse you gave them, if you did not have an excuse slip from the office then they would usually not let you make up the work that you had missed. Teachers did not really seem to care all that much if you sloughed their class, some teachers would feel like their class was not good enough and try to change it. The truth is, we just did not want to go to class at that time.
My personal parents, when Ed sloughed and they found out, would always give me lectures. Sometimes Ed would listen and would not slough for a couple of days then Ed would slough again and we would start arguing again. Ed would just pay absolutely no attention to what his parents are saying. He would then say that they are trying to control him when this is just a way of trying to show them that Ed have the responsibility to do what is right for his person well being. Every time that we would try to talk about his sloughing problem they would always seem like they were attacking what Ed valued the most, himself, in saying that Ed was throwing away his future.
Ed would take the defensive and say that his parents do not know anything. That would just make his parents even more upset and his mother would break down into tears. Ed did not care because Ed was extremely upset at his parents for telling me what is best for him when they did not know any thing of what was going on inside. Then at the end, when the Vice-Principal called me in, they were about to give up.
That is what Ed wanted, Ed did not want them to care about what Ed did in school. An individual stated that while he was sloughing he was more of a jerk, had less money and did not get along with his parents as well. When he stopped sloughing he was not as much of a jerk, felt better about himself, and got along with his parents better. When Ed sloughed, Ed did it to relieve stress; therefore, Ed was a much more calm person that could handle any stress at any time do to the fact that Ed did not worry about school. The bad part of the sloughing was the money that Ed spent on gas, food, and other items that Ed bought. If Ed had not been sloughing then Ed would probably not have nearly as many financial problems.
Ed also became extremely irritable with his parents. Ed did however not have any road rage, stress from work or home. While Ed was sloughing, Ed felt, like a better person. Although sloughing had an effect on two people, there was one person that it did not have an effect on. It did not bother him that he was sloughing nor did sloughing relieve any stress because he did not have any.
The one thing that did show up with every one is the tendency to be a little lazy when it comes to things that we did not think that really needed to be done. There is some proof that sloughing might be good for the mental state of a few people and have total reverse effects on others. It is up to the individual to decide whether it is what the student requires in order to be a better more productive student in school. Ed never really got any punishments from his parents. Ed just felt bad about what was happening to his parents.
He did not understand why it was ripping them apart. He still does not understand it all of the way. An individual that was sloughing was grounded for two months, forced to quit his job and do homework every night. Another individual had his car taken away and is not allowed to do anything over spring break. Those two individuals were planning to take a trip down to St. George to spend time with an aunt.
His punishment affected both of them and it should have only affected one of them. These two individuals are friends of Eds. When parents care so much about their kids, that it starts effecting other peoples children, it becomes more of a mistake. It is also showing that the parents think that their ideas are the best ideas in the fact that they are trying to make other teenagers parents treat their teenagers the way that they treat theirs. Parents trying to change other parents almost never work out. Every one in the school was required to pay the large amount of money at the beginning of school.
We paid for our education. Why should the administration care what we do with what we bought? It should make no difference if we slough or not. If it should be anybodys concern, other that the students it should be the parents. The parents and the student need to work out a plan that would keep the student in school. The Vice-Principal should just notify the parents of the students truancies. It is none of the state legislature responsibility to keep kids in school.
It is the parents. If the parents cannot handle the kids then they need to learn a way to handle the kids. We are paying good tax money to keep law and order. So why are the copy picking up truant students and spending their time with students when they could be out keeping traffic laws upheld or at a car accident helping somebody that needs help more than the student. Bibliography Taylor Syphus. “Truants dont get off easy in Provo.” Salt Lake Tribune 22, November, 1999:C3 pp.1-4 Pot, Ther.
Truant Notes. 1999. 11/6/99 < http://www.effingpot.com/fun/truants.html > Yeager, Melanie. Neon Pink T-Shirts possible punishment for truant students in Potter County. 1997.
10/13/97 < http://generation-y.com/stories/103197/neon.html > Jones, Roy A. “Mothers sentenced to attend school with truant daughters,” 1997. 10/25/97 < http://www.texnews.com/local97/truant102797.html > Bigler, Preston. Personal Interview. 15, February, 2000 Marcusen, Weston. Personal Interview.
15, February 2000 Gates, Chad. Personal Interview. 15, February, 2000 Cooke, William. Personal Interview. 15, February, 2000 Middleton, Doug. Personal Interview.
15, February, 2000 Middleton, Neil. Personal Interview. 17, February, 2000 Bigler, Jason. Personal Interview. 14, February, 2000 Dean, Jeremy. Personal Interview.
15, February, 2000.
