In US schools, is isolation a thing?
Posted by EscapedSmoggy@reddit | AskAnAmerican | View on Reddit | 129 comments
I'm a supply (substitute) teacher in the UK. I've now probably worked in about 50 secondary schools, the majority of which have some sort of isolation system. This is a classroom where students who have been removed from lessons go to do work in silence, supervised by a teacher. The reason is usually behaviour in lessons (i.e. their behaviour in a lesson is too disruptive to other students), sometimes it's used for students caught truanting within the school, and very occasionally used by schools for uniform violations - I once covered an isolation room where a student has his hair cut too short and he was there until it grew to an "appropriate length" (he was a lovely kid too). Some just look like regular classrooms, some have booths.
KazNamOrfa@reddit
Was called detention or iss (in school suspension) when I was in school
EscapedSmoggy@reddit (OP)
This stems from a conversation I had with my fiance, who grew up in California. Whenever I mentioned isolation, he just thought I was talking about detention. Detentions are at break time, lunch time or after school (usually - although I did a term in a school which scrapped after schools because it was very rural and kids often couldn't get home without the regular school bus). Isolation is literally in lesson time. They do their class work in an isolation room. I guess it's an alternative to sending them home when their behaviour is too disruptive to be in a classroom.
Norwester77@reddit
That sounds more like study hall.
Starbucksplasticcups@reddit
What you’re describing could happen in some US schools. However, if a student is a “normal” kid and they suddenly have a very disruptive day they would typically head to the Principals office. This would NOT mean they are being sent home. Sending a kid home because they are disruptive is something I’ve never heard of. They would typically spend sometime with a Principal, Dean, or other staff member who is charged with overseeing kids who are having issues. If a student has a history of disruptive behavior, and the school and parents are proactive, the student might be evaluated and an IEP might be put in place. If their IEP stipulates the need for quiet time to regroup SOME schools now have OT rooms where the student can collect him or herself. They might have a sensory swing, or other types of calming therapies. I’ve never seen a room that is staffed solely incase kids are being disruptive. However, every school in the US can deal with these situations differently and there is no standard way of dealing with disruptive kids. However, sending them home is always a last resort because attendance=money.
Intergalacticdespot@reddit
We had study hall. Where kids took it as a class on purpose to get their homework done. It was the best place to find people to smoke with and other degeneracies.
distracted_x@reddit
That's what iss "in school suspension" means. You're in a separate room all school day with a teacher basically babysitting you. They give you assignments but I just propped my text book up and tried to sleep.
jwagne51@reddit
When it happened to me I did my homework so I didn’t have to do it after school.
DelsinMcgrath835@reddit
Yeah, distracted x sounds like they spent a lot more time in iss than you did. I mean, for one thing your comment implies that you normally did your homework in the evening, but i doubt they did
redwolf1219@reddit
I only got it once, and my best friend got put into it with me.
And on that day, the teacher that was supposed to supervise us wasn't there so they put the two of us in the meeting room next to the principals office alone. Ended up being a great day
Next_Sun_2002@reddit
My “assignment” was to copy the dictionary. Someone would open it up to a random page and I would start writing the words, definitions and all. I was being monitored so I couldn’t pretend to sleep.
shelwood46@reddit
My prep school did social and academic probabation. Social was sneaking off to party etc and required minimum 10 community service hours -- we already were assigned various cleaning tasks and dish duty, so you usually ended up working for a teacher or helping the lawn guy. Subsequent violations got you more hours, and eventually expelled. Academic probation was for when you sucked and got you study hall, in the evening usually, with just you and a teacher in the library. That sounds nice but was terrifying.
PurpleLilyEsq@reddit
That’s what detention was at my school. There were papers with boxes and you put one word in each box of the constitution or whatever they were making you write out.
Geomaxmas@reddit
In our school we had to stand and write rules before we could do class work.
LuckyStax@reddit
Shit man, I just was put in the back of the school store supply closet and asked to work quietly
Not_Campo2@reddit
That’s ISS or in school suspension. Basically people realized it was really silly to suspend students, ie don’t let them come to school, for a lot of things that were too extreme for detentions but not extreme enough for expulsion. Especially things like skipping class or aggression short of violence. ISS basically means still school but isolated, can have multiple kids in there but no talking, no looking at each other, no passing notes. Never heard of it for hair, but I’ve seen it for things like inappropriate clothing, skipping a lot of classes, screaming at teachers, fighting other students, and similar things. My school also really didn’t do detentions so it was almost always ISS or regular suspension
mando_ad@reddit
I got ISS for facial hair.
kit0000033@reddit
If you were caught skipping a class in my school, they would give you ISS for the same class period the next day... I was like cool, I didn't want to go to that class anyways.
Not_Campo2@reddit
They’d give us ISS for the whole next day
blackhorse15A@reddit
I don't think our school has after school detention anymore. But they do use lunch detention. Since lunch is a big time to socialize the punishment is taking away the student's free time with friends. Grab your lunch and go a detention room where there is no talking and students are spaced out. They could also give ISS for just one period, typically during a study hall. Which isn't much different, but it's a minor punishment since it's a stricter environment and away from your normal friends.
ISS for the whole day is definitely a thing. We still have our of school suspensions. Which for a lot of kids ramps up the consequences since it inconveniences their parents to have to deal with kid being home. But that really depends on the family dynamics- some parents don't care and the kid just gets a holiday so I think that's why ISS can work for those kids.
Or they seem to use out of school suspensions for really serious stuff where they just dont want the kid physically in the building for safety reasons. Like if there is a big fight and they want to let heads cool for a few days before those kids have access to each other. And sometimes it's a week of suspension the kid never returns from- i.e. the suspension got them out of the building while the school went through the process of expelling them (think plain criminal or violent behavior), or transferring them into some other special program at a special school (if the discipline issues were stemming from regular teachers not handling the student properly, like severe autism, or bullying for being gay or whatever)
shammy_dammy@reddit
In school suspension.
Sharp_Ad_9431@reddit
Many us schools don't have the staff to isolate a child.
They barely have enough teachers for each classroom.
In my state they allow high school graduates to be substitute teachers. They just need enough adults to stay open, forget about teaching. But my state is the worst in all of the country.
Tea party/ maga took over and in less than 9 years destroyed or school systems
KingDarius89@reddit
I had in school suspension. In California. Basically all of my schooling was in California.
BigPapaJava@reddit
We call it “In School Suspension” here, but it’s the same concept: students who get in trouble for their behavior go, sit at a desk, and work in silence during the school day with a teacher there to supervise.
We don’t use the word “isolation” because that conjures up images of locking kids with disabilities such as autism in there when they are deregulated. Those kids may need such a space at times to calm down and compose themselves, but they cannot simply be shut away in a room by themselves without supervision due to safety and legal reasons.
Gawd_Awful@reddit
One of my old high schools used to have a storage room that had a fenced off section in it, where they used to lock up equipment or something. It was eventually turned into the ISS area but they kept the chain link fencing up, leading everyone to call it The Cage. They removed the gate and we weren’t locked in but your comment just stirred up some 30 year old memories
AdInevitable2695@reddit
Yeah, that is in school suspension here. Same concept. I've never heard of it for a haircut but I've seen other girls get it for continually wearing inappropriate clothing.
Firefly_Magic@reddit
ISS is usually the all day version. ‘In School Suspension’
KazNamOrfa@reddit
Thats what iss was for me. TN, 15 years ago
BadgeringMagpie@reddit
And it's been my experience that the kids who actually needn't be removed for behavioral problems never are.
The kid who tried to force my locker back open and tried to rifle through my things when I just wanted to go to class? Never missed a day.
The kid who repeatedly groped me in gym? Never missed gym any of those times.
The kid who came close to sexually assaulting me? Nope, they just "talked" to him.
The kids who kept spitting chewed up erasers at the back of my neck and throwing half-eaten food at me at lunch? Nope.
The kid who threw a large rock over a shed I was hiding behind and somehow managed to scrape my ear and hit my shoulder with it? "We didn't see it happen, so we can't just take your word for it."
Me when I finally reached my breaking point with the constant bullying and had a meltdown in class? Five days ISS.
Mysterious-Carry6233@reddit
Can confirm ISS is still a thing. Source:I’m a teacher at a high school in USA
Normal_Candle499@reddit
Not really isolation though. We didnt have supervised individual education time. We were put in a room with 10 other kids and a substitute teacher who didn't want to be there either
Lacylanexoxo@reddit
Same here. I’m assuming “supply” is the same as substitute teacher?
Josephcooper96@reddit
I guess detention or in school suspension would be the equivalent of this here in my experience though I did go to a autistic school in new york that had a self isolation room
Antioch666@reddit
We had ISS and detention. ISS is the equivalent of your isolation. Detention is basically loss of "free time" and is done outside of class hours.
JoseSpiknSpan@reddit
Or being late for some reason. The punishment for missing 5 minutes of class (the 5 minutes when the least teaching was done btw) was missing more class! How does that make sense.
Trevor_Culley@reddit
I've been out of grade school for longer than I was in it and I could still rant about this for hours. My high school allowed each student 3 unexcused tardies and 10 unexcused absences per semester. If you were late a fourth time or more, you got detention. After I started driving myself to school, I'd get stuck in traffic (AKA the big line of students, teachers, and busses all trying to get to school in the morning), and you would always see a bunch of cars just turn around go home when the clock hit 7:30 because you'd be punished more for arriving late than just going home.
EscapedSmoggy@reddit (OP)
In the UK we have a bit of a bee in our bonnets over school uniforms, which extends to hair cuts, make-up and jewelry.
easy_Money@reddit
That's honestly pretty fucking wild to me. Hair cuts? Punishing children based on their physical appearance is just cruel.
la-anah@reddit
It has been an issue in the US with punishing Black students for natural hairstyles. https://www.naacpldf.org/natural-hair-discrimination/
Traditional-Joke-179@reddit
native boys too, for long hair
TXSyd@reddit
My private Christian school in Texas was pretty militant about boys haircuts. It could not touch their collars, be below their eyebrows, or I believe touch the ears. At one point the principal grabbed a pair of scissors, grabbed one of the boys and cut a chunk out of his hair right there in the middle of the school.
sneezhousing@reddit
I went to private school for a few years. One kid had a star design on the side of his head. He was suspended until he shaved his head.
NoKindnessIsWasted@reddit
It happens here. Private schools do what they want and public schools in places like Texas have more recently had pretty strict rules for public schools.
ChallengeRationality@reddit
How can a male’s haircut be too short? I realise this is ‘t your personal policy, but what is the thinking behind it?
No-Koala1918@reddit
Skinheads are a thing in England.
Proud-Delivery-621@reddit
Depends on if your school has uniforms. My school had required uniforms and people were written up for haircuts (usually just got demerits, though, it's kinda silly to force them to wait until their hair grows back lol).
Danibear285@reddit
It’s to keep certain minority groups “in check” by having an authority over what “is appropriate” for a certain group of individuals to dress cut their hair and act to an extent.
Proud-Delivery-621@reddit
No, it was because my school wanted everyone to look pretty much the same. The school was 99.9% white, there weren't enough minority students for that to be the goal lol.
Zaidswith@reddit
ISS (In school suspension) - You'd go to a singular room and do busy work sent from your teachers all day long. No talking. You even got to eat in there. We had little cubicles. Assigned for bad behavior.
We also had detention. Strictly before school or during lunch. This was mostly for being late. To school. To class. If you kept being late to your scheduled detention you'd end up in ISS or the next option. It was never after school because the school buses only run once. Holding a kid past that time wasn't permitted. Expecting them to find a way to school early on a future day was apparently more appropriate.
Saturday Work Detail - think detention like the Breakfast club except you spend your time scraping gum off the bleachers instead of sitting in a library for half the day writing an essay. Chronic detentions without other behavior issues often led to this.
OSS (Out of school suspension) - Set number of days where you aren't allowed in school or allowed to participate in any extracurricular events. Continuing bad behavior or excessive ISS.
Expulsion
sorakirei@reddit
Never quite understood how Out of School Suspension was a punishment for the student. Do something very bad, don't have to go to school for X days.
cdb03b@reddit
We called it ISS (In School Suspension) or Detention when I was in school. Detention would be before school, after school, or during lunch. ISS would be taking you out of classes.
Amockdfw89@reddit
ISS and detention.
Some students who are SPED or some other circumstance can take test and stuff in isolation
Danny-B0ii@reddit
We call it isolation it sounds like torture, I remember absolutely loving ISS. The ISS teacher would let me spend my lunches in the room and eat and read and peace if the seats weren't full.
Accomplished-Park480@reddit
Based on your description, I think my high school called what you are describing as in-school suspension. You still had to come to school, but you didn't go to your regular classes but were lumped into a room and spent all day focusing on their studies without an instructor.
EscapedSmoggy@reddit (OP)
How long would someone be in there for? Usually? "Internal exclusion" is sometimes a phrase that's used instead of isolation.
Proud-Delivery-621@reddit
The few times it happened to me I was there for a day at the most.
Merkilan@reddit
It is funny how different kids are. Those on my bus ranged from denying doing anything wrong to "yep I deserved it" to "I'll do it again." Most of my bus kids respected me and wanted to tell me about what got them there. There absolutely were cases where I felt they got shafted for trying to stand up for someone else and got punished along with the bully. Those kids were raised like me. You don't go tell on someone, you take care of it. Unfortunately sometimes they went too far, but even those that didn't would get in trouble for verbally pushing back against a bully.
Proud-Delivery-621@reddit
Yeah the majority of the time when I was in ISS it was for fighting back against bullies. I would get attacked, I would fight back, and we would both punished because the teacher who watched it all happen "didn't know who started it".
Merkilan@reddit
In my experience as a school bus driver for ten years, the students were not alone. They were there with other students also in suspension. Maybe very very small schools have only 1 student act out that badly, but the schools in my area have about 400-600 kids every grade level.
Here we call it alternative school. Kids that have acted out very badly go to a different buildings, if they ride the school bus we drop them off after dropping off the rest of the students at school.
There the students still do their classes, but at desks with dividers they can't see past. They can't talk to each other and have to stay silent most of the time.
Understand, it takes a lot to end up being separated like this. Some are suspended for only 3 days, some for a week or two, some for the rest of the school year. If they are still acting out and potentially dangerous, they will be suspended from school completely.
FireGodNYC@reddit
This is what we had in NY - it was called the Time Out Room 🤣 - all your work was sent tonight room and there was one teacher who would sit in there and make sure you did your work -
ConflictedMom10@reddit
Isolation is something completely different here, and requires paperwork and very particular parameters.
Scarlet-Fire_77@reddit
Our room was called the Time out Room. But mainly used for lunch detention or in school suspention. I got along well with those ladies. I wasn't a bad kid, just good at pushing buttons.
Parking_Champion_740@reddit
I haven’t heard of keeping a kid in isolation. Sometimes detention during lunch or after school but it’s usually in a group .
Reverend_Bull@reddit
In-school Suspension. ISS.
My favorite? Sending someone to ISS for sleeping in class. What do you do in ISS? A day's worth of work in an hour and a half, then sleep or read the rest of the day.
Merkilan@reddit
One student in my bus made sure to end up in ISS every other week for that reason. He was very smart and was frankly bored in class. He was also very sarcastic and would make remarks to annoy others and basically disrespectful to the point he'd end up in ISS.
Normally I don't ask students questions about why they ended up in ISS. As a policy I don't pry or prob; usually what I know is volunteered. In this case it was happening so often and though I knew he could get on other's nerves and was a sarcastic troublemaker sometimes, I really didn't have problems with him on the bus. The kids he acted out with were also mouthy back and if it got too bad I'd tell them to cut it out and change the subject. That topic was no longer allowed if they can't act right.
Anyways, I finally asked him what was he doing to constantly be in ISS. He said he was tired of being bored and a few teachers he absolutely loathed. Thought they were stupid. Yes I gave him the "Mmmhumm" look for that lol.
He wanted to be in ISS because he had privacy and wasn't bothered by "dumb teachers" all day. He purposely did things to get him there, but not enough to be suspended or be punished by his dad.
Poor kid had an absolutely horrific father. He'd run to the bus when I picked him up and his dad would be drunk and shitty at 8 in the morning bellowing at him. Once in a while his dad would be awesome, take him hunting or fishing all day, and that kid would be so happy when he got on the bus Monday morning. It never lasted though.
As school bus drivers we saw a different part of the students than the teachers because we often saw their homes or communities they lived in.
Signal-Anxiety3131@reddit
At first I thought the question was about loneliness in school.
Merkilan@reddit
🤣🤣
BusyMap9686@reddit
Yes. In-school suspension is where I spent a number of my school days. If you can't conform to the tiny box they try to shove you in, you'll end up in the disciplinary room. It doesn't work. You can't force conformity into individuals. Everyone I know who spent more than a few times in there is either very successful, in prison, or dead.
peter303_@reddit
We called this detention. Funny movie about it The Breakfast Club.
Opposite-Act-7413@reddit
Yeah, sounds like ISS (in school suspension). I thought you originally meant social isolation before I read the whole post and I was thinking, “Doesn’t that happen everywhere?” Lol Not actually funny at all…
lucytiger@reddit
Yes, I think my middle school called it the "Planning Room"...like go and sit with your shame and plan to do better
LyraSnake@reddit
his hair was too short and so he was removed from classrooms with other kids????? that feels insane
Bigstar976@reddit
I moved to the UK from France in the late 90s to work as a French assistant in a middle school. I had long hair that I kept in a pony tail. The principal made me cut it to shoulder length before I could start working. I don’t know what the deal is with British people and hair follicles, but they have a thing about it.
No-Koala1918@reddit
Boys in Redland get expelled for long hair.
roby_1_kenobi@reddit
Hey, pro tip, if you're punishing a kid for their haircut you've fucked up
Bigstar976@reddit
I moved to the UK from France in the late 90s to work as a French assistant in a middle school. I had long hair. The principal made me cut it to shoulder length. I don’t know what the deal is with British people and hair follicles, but they have a thing about it.
webbess1@reddit
They have uniforms in the UK.
LionLucy@reddit
It’s probably not the individual teacher’s fault - it’ll be a violation of the school uniform policy
Aware-Owl4346@reddit
Well OP is from UK. Why do I suddenly have “The Wall” soundtrack running through my head?
NoKindnessIsWasted@reddit
Texas has been sued by indigenous and Black students for restricted hairstyles.
MyUsername2459@reddit
A lot of American public education is about enforcing conformity, definitely not about educating
HortonFLK@reddit
Education is often more about power and control than learning.
elunabee@reddit
Yeah the closest is in-school suspension but you'd have to do a lot worse than cutting your hair to be sent there. Usually for 1-3 days at my high school.
My district had one building all fifth graders in the consolidated district (two towns combined) were funneled into. We were divided into four homerooms and would rotate teachers and their respective courses, PE/Recess, and lunch hour. This building had a desk behind a partition on one of the landings and it was generally assumed a student who was sent out of class would go here for the remainder of that period unless it was really warranted for them to go to the principal's office instead.
WhatABeautifulMess@reddit
There’s no standardization in the US so questions like this will vary widely from place to place. As many are saying schools often have in school suspension but that’s often in office or similar. Many schools barely have enough classrooms for classes so they’re not going to waste whole room on waiting for some kid’s hair to grow.
Derangedberger@reddit
We called it in-school-suspension, however there was no dress code, and skipping class (what I assume truanting is) was not punished. It was mainly for students who got into fights or severely disrespected teachers.
Bestness@reddit
Depends, detention is a thing, but isolation as punishment is in theory illegal but is still often used on special education kids anyway. The second case is abuse but unless an outside org catches them in the act nothing will be done about it.
Salty-Ambition9733@reddit
Cut his hair too short???? Huh?
NoKindnessIsWasted@reddit
Some of the private schools there don't allow shaved sides.
Salty-Ambition9733@reddit
Oh, I see.
Bluemonogi@reddit
I don’t know about schools now. When I was in school there was a room for in school suspension or detention in high school for behavior issues that were not severe enough for suspension or expulsion. There was nothing like a room for detention or suspension in elementary school. I think the vice principal or a regular teacher supervised the in school suspension not a substitute teacher.
If you were breaking dress code rules at my school you might get a warning, be required to change or be sent home. There were no rules about hair length.
Communal-Lipstick@reddit
No, kids are not kept in isolation but can be put in detention with other kids.
ButterFace225@reddit
It was called Retract (in school suspension) where I'm from. Lunch duty was for uniform violations. If you had multiple violations, you could potentially get sent to retract.
Danktizzle@reddit
In the fourth grade, I had this turd of a teacher. I spent a month in the hallway. I’d come back in on Monday and the slightest thing I did sent me back out. About three weeks in, I was so confused (we were learning multiplying fractions) I turned around to ask what was going on. Back to the hallway.
That bitch fucked up my math skills for a long time.
Joeygorgia@reddit
We call it an in school suspension, and there isn’t really a classroom for it, it’s a serious punishment, one level below a out of school suspension, and it’s normally held in the main office.
MakalakaPeaka@reddit
Man, if I could have gotten in a room like that, I'd just keep my hair shaved short.
illusionary_cat@reddit
I’ve never heard of this, or ISS. But my school was 400 students, so I think it was easier to handle a situation one on one. I saw some kids sent to the counselor or sometimes to the principal if it were truly bad behavior. Dress code/uniform violations were written down and we were sent to the nurse who had replacement uniforms, but it was not actually punished until you got a few violations. Taking a child away from more lessons for previous truancy seems quite backwards to me.
KingDarius89@reddit
It's called in school suspension. I got it once or twice after I got in fights where it was clear that I was just defending myself.
JaimanV2@reddit
Yeah, when I was in school, it was called ISS. I clearly remember my ISS teacher. He was a hard ass.
The classroom was basically a closet made into a makeshift classroom for those in ISS. After doing the assignments our regular teacher would give to us, the ISS teacher would give us “extra” work just make it even more miserable.
I remember he gave me a math textbook and said “Okay, Mr. Jaimen, I want you to solve all these math problems while you are here in ISS.” There were over a thousand math problems in the back of that textbook. It was horrible.
The second (and last time) I had ISS, he made me copy the Constitution over and over again. I copied it word for word around 4 four times.
KingJulian1500@reddit
lol my detentions were the opposite from that kid. I used to get a detention if I didn’t shave my beard that morning. There was even another kid that they forced to shave everyday at lunch.
r2k398@reddit
It was called In School Suspension (ISS) where I grew up.
cornbreadkillua@reddit
We didn’t have anything like that when I was in school. If you were in trouble, you could get sent to detention after school. I guess the closest comparison would be lunch detention, but it was all the kids who had detention sitting together in a room supervised while they ate lunch.
We did have breakout rooms though where students could go by themselves or in a small room to do their work outside of the classroom. They were usually right next to the classroom and has windows, so the teacher could watch them the whole time.
One_Advantage793@reddit
When I was a kid, about a million years ago, we had that but it was called "in school suspension." My friend who recently retired from teaching middle school here in the U.S. says they still do it but it's called different things at different schools. I immediately forgot what she said they called it at her school.
jessek@reddit
Sounds similar to in school suspension, which was a punishment for severe infractions like fighting when I was in school.
PoppaBear63@reddit
Depends on the age. It is common in the lower grades like kindergarten through second grade, where students have issues regulating their emotions. Rather than disturb the other kids they work with a one on one until they are calmer. I have a grandson on the spectrum who uses it a couple of times every week. They know the signs so they make the transition before he starts to get physical.
MetroBS@reddit
Yeah we called it in school suspension (iss) though
pakrat1967@reddit
Along with detention and ISS already mentioned. There were "remedial" classes. Initially these were for students who were struggling with the subject. But over time it became the place to put problem students.
EastTXJosh@reddit
We called it ISS (In School Suspension). It involved being stuck in a windowless classroom, usually for a 1-3 day sentence, depending on the offense (too many absences gets you 1 day, fighting gets you 3, etc.). You took your lunch in the same room, isolated from the rest of the student body.
WhereTheSkyBegan@reddit
Well, it wasn't a punishment exactly, but I took my math tests in a separate, empty room, away from the other students. Seeing everyone else finish before me would make me panic and end up spiraling into self-loathing because OMG I am so bad at math and I'll never be good at it no matter how hard I try and I'm a failure and I'll never be smart enough to hold down a job etc. etc. etc. My freakouts were definitely disruptive, but I think my math teacher's suggestion to take my tests away from the other students was made with my best interests in mind as well as theirs. My grades improved dramatically once I wasn’t comparing myself to everyone else and getting down on myself, and I was a lot less stressed out, too.
manicpixidreamgirl04@reddit
If a kid is being disruptive in class, they might get sent to the office for the rest of the period.
For more serious behavior problems, they could get in-school-suspension for a set amount of time.
Low_Key_2827@reddit
A lot of people are saying that’s the same as in school suspension, but based on your description there is at least one major difference. At least in the district where I work, there is a far higher bar for ISS. A kid has to have really messed up for that. It’s beyond being disruptive and it has to be given by an administrator not a teacher.
Soundwave-1976@reddit
We just send kids homestead are behavior or dress code violations. We don't have hair cut rules though that sounds draconian
MyUsername2459@reddit
It is usually called "in-school suspension", often just abbreviated to ISS.
It has been in schools in the US for a long time, I remember it existed iwhen I was in high school in the early to mid-90s.
EconomyConcert5610@reddit
not to that extreme
malibuklw@reddit
Yes, we had that and called it in school suspension. In some schools (in Texas and maybe other places)) they even have tiny closets if they really want to isolate a child, like solitary confinement
North_Artichoke_6721@reddit
Yes. “In school suspension” or ISS is a punishment classroom where students are sent who cannot behave in a regular class.
Detention is for after school, and Saturday detention is for repeat offenders. (You have to be pretty bad to get to that stage.)
dontlookback76@reddit
We called it in-house-suspension in our district. Detention stopped at high school. I've never seen the Saturday detention like the Breakfast Club. Clark County, Nevada, is the district. It was either suspension, which really just gave the kid a few days off school like a mini vacation or in-house, which kept them in school but isolated. Although tbh, I hadn't really realized the isolation aspect. I've been out of high school over 31 years now and just never thought about it that way. H
machagogo@reddit
We would call this in school suspension.
TheHarlemHellfighter@reddit
In school suspension
BankManager69420@reddit
Not really, no. Closest thing would be in-school suspension but it’s not really popular anymore. Nowadays if kids misbehave they’re typically just sent to go talk with the principal or vice principal.
EscapedSmoggy@reddit (OP)
Just wanted to add a couple of things - I think they've definitely become more of a thing in the last 15-20 years. When I was at school myself, if someone was removed from a lesson they would sit at a little desk in the hallway and senior teachers doing the rounds would keep an eye on them. Isolation did exist in other schools, but it wasn't as consistent as it seems to be now.
Square-Wing-6273@reddit
I graduated in 1987, and we absolutely had ISS. We called it "the hole" and you would come to school and spend the entire day in one room, supervised, no talking, no interactions, just do your school work.
There was also out of school suspension, for more serious cases of troublemaking, although in hindsight, I'm not sure why they would do that.
Queasy_Difference_96@reddit
In the UK here and that’s my experience too. Isolation wasn’t a thing until it suddenly was. I don’t think my older sister had it at her school and she left secondary in 2004. When I was in Yr9 in 2004/05 my school had an isolation unit built, it was like office cubicles but on a much smaller scale. There were about 8 desks in total, 2 rows of 4, all next to each other with a divider in between. My daughter who is going into Yr10 tomorrow is always in bloody isolation 🙄 except they don’t call it that now because it sounds too negative. It’s called ‘referral’ at her school.
EscapedSmoggy@reddit (OP)
I think behaviour has declined significantly. More rapidly since Covid too. For the most-part pre-covid behaviour policies felt less rigid and step-bases, now most seem to have some version of the C system - something along the lines of C1=warning, C2=second warning that's recorded, C3=break time detention, C4=after school detention, and sometimes removal depending on the school. I don't think I've been in a school in the last 2 years that doesn't have something that looks vaguely like this. Immediately after Covid, maybe 20% had some version of that.
_Smedette_@reddit
ISS (In School Suspension).
The student is removed from their regular classroom and sent to another room (with a teacher) to be monitored.
aquay@reddit
we used to have a school where those kids were sent. if it's just for a day or so, it's called detention ala The Breakfast Club.
Weekly_Error1693@reddit
Yeah. We call it ISS or in school suspension. The ISS I was given in high school lasted three days.
coronarybee@reddit
Someone in my school had permanent in school suspension because he kept throwing furniture at the rest of us. Tbf the school district tried expelling him but the mom fought them in court. The district has had a long held policy, (that I think my grandpa helped put in place) that kids have the right to be publicly educated. They just don’t have the right to be educated around other children.
Generally speaking though, they weren’t big on in school suspension. The only other person I knew who got it, was because he got caught running a pretty extensive cheating ring.
annang@reddit
Yes, and in most of the ways it’s used, it’s child abuse.
EscapedSmoggy@reddit (OP)
I don't like it for things other than disruptive behaviour. In the last week of term in July I sent a 15 year old to isolation after he came in late, walked straight to another student, squared up to him, I told him to sit down in his seat and he said "I don't know who you think you are, sticking your nose in" very aggressively to me. He was not in a frame of mind to be in a classroom, and I could see it escalating to something physical. I couldn't have him in the classroom.
Futurama_Nerd@reddit
Yes, it's called in school suspension.