A Colorado school superintendent said Friday he will keep disciplining students by placing them in isolated, 4-by-6-foot rooms to study during school hours as an alternative to expulsion and to cut the dropout rate.
The punishment is preferable to allowing the students to disrupt others, and it allows the school to avoid losing state accreditation over its dropout rate, said Center Consolidated School District Superintendent George Welsh. That rate has dropped from 13 percent to less than 2 percent last year.
The school in southern Colorado’s San Luis Valley had been warned by state officials about its poor performance, he said. Parents of troublesome students were given a choice between having children expelled or placed in isolation, where they were given materials to study.
Infractions that resulted in isolation range from selling drugs and carrying knives to talking in class and passing notes. About 40 students have landed in isolation in 10 years. He said the rooms have unlocked doors.
It wasn’t until spring that some parents complained, he said. Their complaints were first reported by 7News. Welsh agreed to remove doors from the rooms and said those in the program will now be more closely supervised, get exercise twice a day, and eat lunch with others.
