Changes in Disciplinary System (Detentions, Tier 1/2/3)

By Andy Liu' 29

Supervised, “no big deal.” The disciplinary system at Cate has changed.

Before, a detention might not have meant much; people didn’t care about the consequences of getting one, since it was just an hour of free time. In most schools, detentions were usually on Sundays or on Saturdays, when most students have evening commitments or activities.

Detentions are used to deter minor misbehavior, reinforce school rules, and maintain discipline in the school community. 

According to Bryan Rodriguez (B-Rod), the work crew is an activity similar to manual labor, where students pick up trash and clean cars. However, students, especially BIPOC students, expressed concerns about putting kids into manual labor as punishment and how degrading it could feel. 

As a result, the school sought to be equitable and responsive and removed the work crew from the disciplinary system. So the only thing left was detention, which was basically a supervised study hall. What was different was that students were actually allowed to use technology to do work, such as using their laptops. 

 However, to create a more structured, deterrent environment during detention hours, Cate removed technology from detention, aligning with traditional detention practices and those used by other schools in the Santa Barbara region.

B-Rod also mentions that students didn't care if they were late to class, sports, or anything else, since they could just serve the hours later. That was the mentality, as Bryan put it.

Another reason for the change to the disciplinary system was that students were not serving their detentions as quickly as before. Students were just holding on to their detention hours and not serving their time. 

Therefore, an Early in Dorm (EID) policy was created to prevent detention hours from piling up. When someone has five or more pastoral points, they are placed early in the dorm for a week or more, depending on the number of points. 

To serve EID, students had to be back in their dorm by 7:00 pm and study in the common room until 10:00 pm. On Saturdays and Sundays, students would also have to be back at the dorms at 7:00 p.m. Because students had to be back before 7:00 pm, it limited many weekend fun activities, such as dodgeball, movie night, or even Halloween. 

B-Rod also mentions, “Since students were gaming when theory received early in dorms, the whole point of the common room supervised study is to ensure that they don't do so.” 

When I talked to B-Rod about how students or faculty are responding to this, many students said, “Man, it feels like I’m wasting my time, or I cannot do anything because all my work is on my laptop.” The idea behind the new rule is to help students understand that receiving a detention ultimately wastes their time. The old policies weren't punitive enough, so students weren't taking them seriously and kept repeating the violations. In fact, this was not the intended outcome the disciplinary committee and B-Rod had anticipated. Although they initially hoped the new system would encourage students to follow the rules, it produced the opposite effect. 

When Cate created the T1, T2, and T3 system, it meant that if you have 10 hours of detention, you would talk to your advisor. 

If you get 14 hours of detention, you would have to speak with one of the disciplinary officers. And if you hit 18, you get a final warning and would speak to B-Rod about it. And if you receive 20 or more violations, you would have to speak with the disciplinary committee. 

Since everything was associated with a Minor Infraction (MI) and Disciplinary Violation (DV), the parents and the teacher were confused, and the kids who were causing trouble were also confused. People who had behavior problems treated the original rule as just a DV, and there was nothing severe about it, so they started to repeat certain behaviors and didn’t care about doing something bad. According to B-rod, some of those kids are associating it with detention hours, when in reality, some of those behaviors are just about their actual honor code violations.

In conclusion, the changes in Cate School’s disciplinary system show the school's efforts to promote more responsibility and accountability, and encourage students to take the school's expectations more seriously. 

By introducing stricter features, such as early in-dorm and the T1, T2, and T3 system, it helps the students as well as the faculty to work together and restore conduct. It also serves as a way for a student to receive a warning before facing more severe consequences, rather than strictly punishing the students after the violations occur.