Administrators in New Ulm schools paint a picture of toughness and fairness when dealing with discipline problems.

And they believe the methods they use in dealing with these problems do work.

SOME STUDENTS, however, see the situation differently.

Three students at New Ulm Senior High School agreed with their principals that truancy and tardiness probably are the biggest problems in the school. But they don’t agree that the culprits always are caught or dealt with fairly.

“It is possible to get away with skipping,” said one youth who has been sent to the principal’s office a couple of times. “A group of nine or 10 of us did it last spring and we got away with it.”

Another student who has skipped only once, but got caught, said he knew of an instance where students who were caught got off with easier penalties because they were involved in athletics.

THE STUDENTS felt smoking was more of a problem at the school, especially among girls, than the administration thinks.

“People are just not caught at it,” one student said. “A few get caught,but there are more that actually do it. I only know of one person who got caught so far this year.”

The students also thought that teachers and administration might hold past offenses against certain individuals and lean on them a little harder.

“All the chalk doesn’t come off the board,” one of the students said.

A STUDENT who has been in trouble a number of times for skipping said he did not think the school’s methods of dealing with discipline problems accomplished much.

“Lots of kids come back and do the same thing,” he said.

On the whole, though, the students think the school does a good job in handling discipline.

“I think discipline is a problem in any school this size, but the school does a pretty good job. It’s a lot to deal with,” one of the students said. He added that the teachers probably have a more objective view of discipline than the students.

HOW DO students in a smaller school feel about discipline problems and the way they are handled? Four students at Cathedral agreed that class-skipping offenders tend to be the same persons and indicated that present penalties are not much of a deterrent.

Standard penalty for skipping classes at Cathedral is detention and work duty like washing blackboards. The school also contacts parents of offenders and at the end of each day reads the detention list over the intercom.

Rick Kelley and Corrine Beranek, juniors at the school, feel the relative peace at Cathedral is a combination of two factors. One factor is that students at Cathedral are interested in studying, they said. Another factor is that teachers keep a pretty firm hold on the situation.

But students still skip for a number of reasons, the students say. Craig Galvin, another junior, said some students skip to go and have a cigarette, or, as a friend of his did, to get an early start on a hunting trip.

Peggy Schneider said she gets tired of classes where students only do papers. She wants classes to be interesting, but she has never rebelled by skipping.

“I wouldn’t have the nerve,” she said.

New Ulm Daily Journal

Jan. 25, 1976