At Wallace Elementary School in Des Moines, Principal Maggie McGill is under fire for a decision she made to discipline one of her students. Many parents are furious over her actions toward that student.

On February 19, an unnamed student was wreaking havoc during the lunch hour. He was being extremely disruptive. After harassing teachers, he reportedly knocked a tray of food onto McGill’s office floor. She was frustrated by this disquieting incident, and to end the disruption that this student was causing, ordered him to eat his lunch on a typewriter desk in the staff restroom while he cooled off.

This angered the child’s parent, Tonya Oliver. After hearing of the day’s activities, she walked into McGill’s office, spit on her and stated that if she had a gun she would use it. Oliver’s threats prompted the school to post a security guard at the front door. She has since pulled her children from the school.

Was this principal right in her actions toward this student? If you take into account the rather extreme nature of this incident, the answer is yes. Was the parent right in her actions toward the principal? Absolutely not.

McGill made the right decision when she separated the student from the rest of the school’s population. If a student is causing a major disruption to the learning process, then that student should be removed from the learning process. Since this occurred over the noon hour, he would have to eat lunch somewhere, and it just happened that the restroom was the only place to keep him.

Before you become outraged at the idea of a child eating in a bathroom, you should look at a picture of it first. This restroom was extremely clean, as you would expect in a staff restroom. If I had a child, I certainly would not have had qualms about that child eating in there if he/she were causing a problem.

Oliver was visibly upset as indicated by her reaction on the evening newscasts. Her behavior though, was inexcusable. To verbally threaten an educator with physical harm (an educator who was trying to teach the child a lesson) is reprehensible. This woman has no one to blame but herself for the lack of discipline her child has. She argues against placing her child in a bathroom, but chances are that bathroom is most likely a lot cleaner than the one in her own house.

This issue hits pretty close to home with me, since I have been in this situation before. When I was in third grade, I had my own discipline problems. I constantly wanted to settle issues with my fists and my principal had enough of it. One day, he decided to settle the problem and put me in the storeroom where I was forced to eat lunch for one month, not just one day. When they heard of the incident, my parents responded, “Good. I hope he learns his lesson.” I did learn my lesson. Unfortunately Oliver doesn’t want her child to learn that punishment follows misconduct.

This is not an isolated case by any means. This string of events repeats itself across the nation. A student gets in trouble, gets punished, and the parents raise holy hell. “Not my boy!” they scream. These parents maintain that their angelic children could never do something bad enough as to deserve punishment.

The outrage parents voice to school officials who punish students gives tacit approval to their children to continue their behavior. This lack of discipline many parents show toward their children continues a cycle of behavior that is partially responsible for the dramatic increase in juvenile crime in recent years.

Disciplining a child is not an easy task, as any parent can tell you. It is a task that has to be performed firmly yet compassionately. If the parents will not make that decision though, then what is wrong with a teacher making the decision for them?

The schools already teach lessons that parents seem unwilling to do themselves. If the schools take the responsibility of teaching sex education and the dangers of drugs, then why can’t we allow teachers to discipline children as well? If the parents won’t do their jobs (as in the Oliver case), then they shouldn’t complain when the school does it for them.

The discipline problems teachers face in school are just one aspect of a larger problem: lack of parent participation. If you need proof that parents are indifferent about their children’s growth in school, just look around. Memberships in PTAs are at record lows. Parents simply do not take an interest in their children’s learning. Report cards and conferences have become replacements for substantive evaluation of progress in learning; a way to quantify results.

The educational process is not just learning cognitive processes like writing, reading, or arithmetic. It includes social growth as well. If parents would take an active part in education, they could see past the occasional D or F. They would find out if their students are progressing not just academically, but growing psychologically and socially as well. If an “A student” has a discipline problem that goes unchecked, he will most likely be an unproductive, even destructive, member of society. Letter grades only go so far.

Grades are only one small part of the picture that is the learning process. Disciplining a child is part of that learning process he/she goes through in life. If the parents shirk that responsibility, then educators will pick up the duties and should not be condemned for doing what parents will not.

Robert Zeis is a senior in finance from Des Moines.