In-school Suspension and Off-school Suspension Essay

In-school Suspension and Off-school Suspension - Essay Example On the other hand, out-of-school suspension (OSS) is an act to keep away the student from school for short-term periods (Saint Helens , 1998). This temporary keeping away of the student is in lieu of investigation that can lead to removal of the student from the school itself, or pending the implementation of some definite measures such as internment through the action of the court, or mental or physical assessment. When the student is suspended, he or she is informed of the acts that constitute the charges, and also the fact of suspension on account of these charges (Saint Helens , 1998). In-school suspension (ISS) has several benefits over out of school suspension. An obvious important benefit is that the student does not have to break off his or her learning by being suspended from the school. The benefits of ISS include (District of Columbia , n.d.): The students who face suspension continue to be taught though in an atmosphere that is restrictive. Everyday they are also provided counseling individually and in a group. They are provided with the opportunities at identifying remedies for their problems (Collins, 1985). The objectives are to pro-actively lead the students to come back to the normal group of students as fast as possible and lastingly too, raise self-worth, heighten the consciousness of oneself, and lessen the troublesome and disorderly conduct. A change in outlook of these students to those who are in authority, increasing their capacity to identify their own strong and positive abilities, enhancing their confidence to own up and be responsible for their actions and improving those areas that they lack or are deficit in (Collins, 1985). They are also encouraged to seek ways to resolve any problems that they may have at home. Attendance is not improved by ISS and it shows a high recidivism rate. However, ISS does not seem to show a decline in disruptive behaviors especially in those students who have behavioral disorders (Yancey, 2001). According to Stage (1997, p.72), "There were no apparent effects of the in-school suspension interventions on classroom disruptive behavior, since there were no systematic differences in disruptive classroom behavior by in-school suspension phase. In fact, the rate of student disruptive behavior remained rather constant across the four in-school suspension interventions, indicating that no type of in-school suspension generalized to classroom behavior any more efficaciously than another" (cited in Yancey, 2001). Pros and Cons of OSS OSS is resorted to mostly in offences that are both trivial and avertable like breaking of the rules of the school which actually does not in any way pose a threat or lead to any violence; at best this is a device to retain a safe school environment (Bruns, Moore, Stephan, Pruitt & Weist, 2005). On the contrary, there are clear indications that OSS, in