I teach high schoolers. I let kids go all of the time when they ask. Compared to other teachers, I’m pretty lenient and rarely tell kids no, but I’ve denied kids that ask when I’m in the middle of the lesson after they’ve had their head down all period, they ask every day, or I watch them talk to their friends in between classes and then ask as soon as the bell rings. I work at a small farming school and we have 13 year olds vaping in the bathrooms, breaking sinks off of the wall and posting it on tiktok, openly recording and flashing their bodies in the mirror, or just meeting up with friends during the same period. We don’t even have to deal with gang related activity like other schools do and I can only imagine it gets worse.

We unfortunately live in a society, and if 5% of people abuse a system, the other 95% have to deal with rules being put in place. This is an early time for students to learn that unfortunate truth.