A Mom Visited Her Son At Lunch & Caught Him Getting An Unusual Punishment For Being 'One Minute Late' To School
Mikhail Nilov | PexelsAfter her 6-year-old son was late to school one morning, an Oregon mother was shocked at the punishment inflicted on him by his elementary school.
Chronic absenteeism is a growing problem in schools, so many administrators feel like they need to take pretty drastic measures to make it clear that they expect students to be in their classes on time. However, Nicole Garloff felt extremely unsettled by the punishment her son, Hunter Cmelo, received when he was barely even late, and thought it was disproportionately unfair given what had happened.
A mom said her son was isolated from his classmates during lunch in the cafeteria after he was one minute late to school.
In 2015, Hunter, a first grader, arrived at Lincoln Elementary School in Grants Pass, Oregon. ABC News reported that what was meant to be a normal morning for him ended up leaving the little boy feeling devastated after he arrived just one minute late to school and was severely penalized for it, all because his family had car trouble.
According to Garloff, their Dodge Durango was not working that morning, which caused her son to be a bit late. "[The school has] a policy where every three tardies, you get a detention," she said. "Every tardy after that, you get a detention."
When Hunter realized he would be late, he began to cry because of how heavily the school punishes tardy students. Garloff went to check on him when he was at lunch to make sure he was OK, and she was heartbroken at the sight of her son sitting alone in the lunch room.
"He was at the first table as you walk into the cafeteria, and he was just sitting there with one of those cardboard poster partitions in front of him," she said. "He wasn't tardy so many times that he deserved that."
Hunter's family shared what happened on social media, which led the community to take action.
Garloff took a photo of Hunter eating alone, which his grandmother, Laura Hoover, later posted to Facebook, according to Daily Mail. "This is my grandson, Hunter. He's a little first grader," she wrote. "His momma's car sometimes doesn't like to start right up. Sometimes he's a couple of minutes late to school."
Hoover explained the photo of Hunter sitting alone with a cardboard divider blocking him from seeing anyone else in the cafeteria. "Yesterday, he was one minute late and this is what his momma discovered they do to punish him!" she exclaimed. "They make a mockery of him in front of the other students."
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The school stood by the punishment at first, but they received so many phone calls because of the viral Facebook post that ABC 13 reported superintendent John Higgins and principal Missy Fitzsimmons changed the school's tardy policy to avoid "actual or perceived isolation or stigmatizing."
The story also caught the eye of AM 1440 radio host Bill Meyer, who contacted a local auto repair shop to see if they would be willing to fix the Durango. Mechanics discovered that the cost to repair the car would be more than it was actually worth, which was when Rapid Repo and Collections stepped in to donate a 2001 Chrysler Town and Country van.
Other Grants Pass community members reached out with gift cards for gas or restaurants for Hunter's family. Garloff acknowledged that they felt "shocked" and "so thankful."
Hunter's story had a happy ending, but many other students fall through the cracks when it comes to unfair punishments.
Everyone has different opinions on how far schools should be able to go to discipline their students. Annemarie Hillman, a policy fellow at Connecticut Voices for Children, believes that detention "can be effective if done right." On the other hand, some teachers think detention doesn't work because students don't actually learn what they did wrong.
Mikhail Nilov | Pexels
In Hunter's case, the punishment was unjust because he didn't actually do anything to deserve it. Schools certainly have to deal with tardiness in some way, but targeting students who hold no responsibility for how they get to school doesn't seem like the answer, especially when they're only one minute late.
Hunter is far from the only student to experience an overly harsh punishment, but most others don't get nearly as much attention. It's heartbreaking to think about how many kids might be feeling just like he did after going through similar situations with no recourse at all.
Nia Tipton is a staff writer with a bachelor's degree in creative writing and journalism who covers news and lifestyle topics that focus on psychology, relationships, and the human experience.
