OSD Looks at Adding Community Service to Disciplinary Options

By Alyssa Schnugg
News Editor
alyssa.schnugg@hottytoddy.com

The Oxford School District is trying to come up with more disciplinary options to teach students a valuable lesson while keeping them in school.

On Monday, the Oxford School District Board of Trustees reviewed the district’s Code of Conduct for the 2019-2020 school year that now has a new option for unruly students that could also benefit the community.

Community service has been added to several infractions in the school’s policy. If approved in July, school principals in the OSD will have the option of sending a student out on a Saturday morning to an approved project to work off their offenses, which could include theft, disturbances, smoking and other infractions.

“It goes back to keeping kids in the classroom as much as we can,” said Assistant Superintendent Bradley Roberson. “Our legal system uses community service all the time.”

Superintendent Brian Harvey said there have been times when a student should be suspended out of school when it involved violence, drugs or weapons on school property. However, for less serious infractions, community service is a better option.

“For some students, being out of school is exactly what they want,” he said. “So we’re basically rewarding them if they are given an out-of-school suspension. We need to find ways that help those students and keep them in school so they can become productive members of society.”

Roberson said this would be the first year to implement community service as a disciplinary action.

An appointed community liaison from the district would work with area organizations to find community service opportunities. Students would serve from 8 a.m. to noon on Saturdays.

The Board of Trustees tabled the approval of the Code of Conduct until the next meeting in July to allow staff to clean up some duplicated clauses and create a section that clearly outlines which infractions would warrant notifying school resource officers.

The entire proposed Student Code of Conduct can be read online here: https://v3.boardbook.org/Public/PublicItemDownload.aspx?ik=44679860.