By: Greta Nerad; Executive News Editor and Sheridan McKnight; News Editor
The Costa administrative staff released an updated discipline matrix and attendance policy to be used by staff members in the 2019-20 school year when making decisons about disciplinary action for students.
The revised matrix includes the steps for teachers and staff members to take when dealing with a variety of offenses, including tardies, ethics violations and drug use. It lists the offense, intervention level and standard disciplinary action, along with the corresponding education code.
“It’s really nice that we have this new discipline matrix because we’re organized,” Principal Dr. Ben Dale said. “We know exactly what to do in each situation because we’ve ironed out this policy.”
Actions that the school will take are listed for varying levels of each offense. Punishments range from parent contact to recommendation for expulsion, depending on the circumstances of the offense and whether the student is a repeat offender.
“I have an obligation to 2,600 students, so at some point a determination has to be made that in order for 2,599 students to come here and get the kind of education that we promise, we have to let this one student go,” Dale said. “When that happens, it is taken very seriously because that should not be our first thought when a kid messes up.”
The administration decided to adjust the matrix due to discrepancies between the various policies at the school, Dale said. There were confusing dissimilarities across Team Costa, the education codes and Costa’s ethics policy that they hoped to clarify.
“We needed to take all of our policies and distill them down to one, cohesive set of discipline interventions,” Dale said.
Additionally, the old matrix was outdated for the issues the school has been facing lately. According to Dale, one of the issues is on-campus vaping offenses, which are concentrated within a small portion of boys in the ninth grade.
“There were things we were dealing with in terms of discipline that weren’t even addressed on the discipline matrix,” Dale said. “I feel very fortunate that we got that all sorted out and organized.”
The increase in vaping on campus has brought attention to creating a uniform disciplinary conduct code to discourage further issues. The school is taking an aggressive approach on vaping matters to discourage on-campus use, Dale said.
“We know who those kids are, we’re keeping an eye on them, we’re being very aggressive with our discipline,” Dale said. “If this happened in any of the past years, we would be scrambling around trying to figure out what to do.”
If a student is caught vaping on campus, a vice principal calls his/her parents, he/she receives a Study Zone, the Manhattan Beach Police Department gets involved and he/she is restricted from future extra-curricular activties. If a student vapes with a marijuana device, it results in a five-day suspension and three-day drug rehabilitation program, counselor intervention, reference to MBPD and restriction from future extra-curricular activities.
“On our end, we prevent vaping and try to educate teenagers not to do it,” School Resource Officer Terry Yrigoyen said. “We hope that deters them from vaping, but we can only do so much.”
According to Dale, the dilemma when it comes to drug use is that there is such a vast variety of products on the market nowadays that kids are uninformed about. Students frequently ask him questions about different types of drug consumption, he said.
“That’s a hard question because I’m not a [medical] doctor, and I can’t give that advice,” Dale said. “I just have to stick to my default method of ‘don’t put it in your body if it’s not healthy for you.’”
When it comes to absences, the disciplinary actions are as follows: when a student reaches three unverified absences, his/her parents receive a truancy letter. Once that number reaches nine, the student also must meet with a vice principal or his/her counselor.
As the absences increase, students will lose their ability to sign themselves out at the age of 18 and even graduate. According to Dale, the policy is partially directed at addressing “senioritis.”
“It is important to go to class even as an 18-year-old senior, as it is important to keep up with classwork,” senior Jack Riddle said. “Colleges may even revoke acceptance if your grades are affected.”
Dale is hopeful that the issues with vaping and truancy will be brought under control quickly, he said.
“I don’t care where you came from, what your experience was in the past,” Dale said. “When you come onto the campus, you’re a Mira Costa Mustang now.”
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