Often, when parents are picking up or dropping off their children, they check the JC board for sentences.  We as staff appreciate the extra support this gives to younger students in particular – a reminder and reinforcement from Mom or Dad that the sentences are important, and sometimes the extra reminder to get the sentences complete. There is another dynamic that tends to go along with sentences, too – that of relief when the board is empty, or disappointment when sentences are posted.

Sentences at Sego Lily School, for the most part, are simply an acknowledgement by the community that some rule or standard was broken.  It is rare that the incident that started the judicial process is of a serious nature. In fact, this year we have not had any truly ‘serious’ complaints to deal with.  Often, it is more along the lines of a mess being left behind, or of one student ‘bugging’ another.  The sentences themselves tend to fall into one of three categories:

• A loss of freedom or privilege: someone leaves a large mess in the playroom, and looses the privilege of using the playroom for a day.
• A ‘payback’ to a person or the community at large: someone leaves behind a mess that someone else has to clean up, so the responsible party must then pick up 10 pieces of trash around the school. Apologies and our famous ‘Random Acts of Kindness’ also fall into this category.
• An educational sentence: a student uses another student’s water cup, and the sentence involves reading a book about germs to help the student understand the importance of using their own cup.

Each sentence has two important purposes: To help the student understand why something isn’t OK in our community, and to give the student an opportunity to ‘make things right.’  The sentences themselves often don’t embody the entire discussion that was held during JC, but we try to keep the spirit of those discussions intact in the sentences themselves.

Looking out into the adult world, I am often reminded of simple parallels.  I got a speeding ticket in September, for driving 49mph in a 40mph zone.  This is the first ticket I have received in about 10 years.  Of course it’s not the first time I have sped, just the first time in a long while that anyone in the community (in this case, a police officer) has said, “Hey, you can’t do that here.”  Was it bad that I sped? Or that I got caught?  Not in and of itself.  Sure, I have the responsibility to follow the laws and keep our streets safe just like anyone else with a driver’s license.  However, it doesn’t make me a bad person, it doesn’t mean I am not fit to drive a car, and it doesn’t mean that I should feel guilty.  I simply paid my ticket, and have been much more conscious about my driving speed since.  It was a good reminder for me to pay more attention to my duty as a driver.  Our community has standards (speed limits) and consequences for violating those standards (tickets & fines that must be paid). Our school works in the same way.

The bottom line is this: We all make mistakes.  We all forget things.  We all, from time to time, disregard a rule or two for our own “convenience.”  Not of this makes us bad people, or means we shouldn’t be allowed to continue to function in society.  We just all have to be responsible for the consequences when we make these choices.  And by the way, both Kyle & I have received sentences this year – both for leaving our water cups in the meeting room.  We both happily took out extra trash.