Children should not have to pay for the crimes of their parents, but at Olympia Elementary school in Universal City, Texas, kids can get detention if their parents don't get them to school on time. Take the case of 6-year-old Brooke Loeffler, she was late three times because her parents, who have a newborn, have had a hard time getting her to school on time.
School policy is that after three tardies students either get one hour of detention after school or detention at lunch. Brooke and her parents chose detention at lunch, which means the 6-year-old has had to sit at a table separated from her friends, facing the wall for two lunch periods. Her father felt so bad about his daughter's punishment that he joined her during one of her lunch time detentions.
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I totally get that tardiness is an issue in schools and that it is horribly disruptive to the whole flow of the day, but the girl is 6! Should she really be punished because her sleep-deprived parents with a newborn have had a hard time getting her to school on time? I don't think so.
I get it if it is an older kid who is late because they are smokin' in the bathroom or something, but it wasn't this child's fault. The parents have admitted fault and I just don't see the point of making a 6-year-old pay for her parents' mistakes.
You should know that when I was in junior high (middle school) I was late to first period 17 times in one semester. My teacher was unbelievably frustrated and told me that she was going to send a letter home to my mother. I said, "Please do, it's her fault I'm always late." Sure enough a letter was sent home and to her credit my mother took responsibility.
My mother drove me to school because I lived a little to far away to walk and she needed my help getting my younger brother ready for school. She was a single mother and worked nights, so as you can imagine she wasn't an early bird, plus in general she tends to run late.
When my teacher received confirmation that it was my mother's fault that I was late, I did not get in trouble. I will say that after getting the letter my mother did make more of an effort to get me to school on time, just like Brooke Loeffler's parents are going to make more of an effort to get her to school on time. The difference is that I did not get punished for the faults of my mother.
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