As the new school year starts, the teachers of Lakota Local Schools have been busy preparing lesson plans, textbooks, new schedules, and new ways to teach throughout the coming months. One part of preparing for the year includes the school administration deciding how they plan on disciplining students: Will there be detentions, in-school suspensions, hall passes, etc? Throughout the last few years, trying to exist peacefully at Lakota West has become increasingly difficult as the rules have become increasingly and uselessly strict. With a new year approaching, will Lakota finally learn how to discipline, or continue aimlessly adding more rules with no sense of direction?

In recent years, West’s administration has loved to follow the mindset that, “if one person messes up, everyone will receive the punishment.” This includes locking bathrooms, hall passes, using XH for its original, intended purpose, and even going to the hub to work on a project. This mindset fails, and points out its own flaws loud and proud for all to admire. The admin team seems to think that punishing everyone for a few people’s mess-ups will mean people will stop. If Lakota has proven anything these last few years, it’s that they don’t know how to tame high schoolers (or to be frank, try to understand them in the first place). Not every student at Main Campus knows each other super well; because of this, when someone messes up, it’s not like we all are going to bully those people out of doing it. These people will continue to do it, and others will follow. The High School admin team needs to focus in on the few people causing the issues, not everyone. By trying to teach everyone the same lesson, you’ll have people frothing at the mouth from how useless the instruction has been.

An overwhelming majority of students never go to the office for disciplinary reasons or have had disciplinary problems throughout their time at Lakota. The school is making their jobs harder by focusing on everyone; when will they learn that not every student is a problem?

Understanding the student’s actions and the motivations behind those actions needs to become priority #1. By understanding them, you’ll learn why they get in trouble, how to help them get back to the right place, and how to accommodate their needs correctly. Students aren’t going to get better if you just push them out: you need to go to the root cause of the problem. Find out why they keep doing whatever it is, and prevent it from happening. Blaming over 700 people for a significantly smaller group of people’s problems isn’t fair. It’s just like being placed in a CP class, or an Honors class: We give people the proper treatment because some of them would simply find CP too easy, and need to learn something different that matches their education level. This mindset of different levels of discipline needs to be applied to the students of West. Most students aren’t the problem; In fact, many end up becoming part of the solution. Main Campus Admins have got to start finding the root of the problem and quit blaming everyone. It’s not fair to the good kids who are just trying to achieve academically when they lose privileges because of a few other people. It’s not our job to fix other people’s problems: We aren’t getting paid enough for that, nor do we have the time when most of us are just trying to pass Algebra II without using a calculator.

The other big issue is Lakota’s major problem of focusing on the wrong stuff: Instead of blocking off half the bathrooms, why don’t you take the people being paid to roam the building and make them do occasional bathroom checks? Instead of worrying about people painting/having cones in their parking spots a few days late, why don’t you worry about the huge amount of students who didn’t pay the 20-dollar donation to paint in the first place? What is it with Lakota trying to solve the wrong stuff? Why does Lakota spend more time tracking down people who skipped 15 minutes of class, than the people who have skipped full days of school with no answer? 

The main campus staff have been digging themselves in a hole for years now, and it’s finally starting to catch up with them: Students are getting tired of new rules being applied every year. Each time I walk into the school, it feels like there is some new hassle that I have to undergo, just to exist. If you want students to show up to school and do well, making Lakota West High School feel like a high-security prison with precautions for every step you take isn’t the solution. All it takes is spending more time finding the root of the problem, focusing on the right stuff, and letting the majority of the students be. Instead of worrying about the nitty-gritty of the dress code, why isn’t the school bothered by the teachers who outright talk down to their kids every other day? We’ve all had those teachers, but why does Lakota do nothing about that? It’s time for Lakota to get their act together and figure out how to discipline students. 

As of late, West has become less and less exciting to go to, and as a senior, it makes me and others more and more excited to leave this May. My clock is ticking, but it doesn’t mean my senior year should become increasingly sucky, all because a few kids missed their marks. Now that every class has textbooks, maybe the West admin team will study up and figure out how to treat their students and staff right, focus on the right stuff, and figure out how to treat everyone with respect. One can only hope that with a new principal, there will be a change in direction this year! But hey, since when has Lakota truly pulled through and given students everything they have deserved?