By Abigale Paterniti, Editor-in-Chief
River Hill’s lunch detention—a 30 minute, max of 6, disciplinary consequence—is a part of administration’s crackdown on student misbehavior.
Yet, many students don’t even know what really happens behind the doors of student services.
For one, students have the choice to eat lunch and complete homework. The classroom is silent, besides the occasional pen drop, scratchy pencil or loud chewer.
“Lunch detention is better than before or after school because I feel like that’s more work to stay and organize a ride.” says junior Aditi Vijarnia.
Assistant Principal Mr. Robb is responsible for all school detention before, after and during school hours.
“Adminstration is hoping to achieve curving misbehavior and finding access points to work with students to find out what the issues are,” says Mr. Robb. ”Theres a lot of stories that come across our desks that we would never share with anybody.”
At River Hill, it’s known that the student body is diverse in race, interest and economic background. However, punctuality is a characteristic of River Hill students that is without status-quo.
”The goal was to give teachers more freedom to assign consequences for kids that habitually come in late,” says Mr. Robb. “Surely it’s up to the class teacher to basically say, hey, you know what, first period, this is like your fourth time. I’m going to give you detention.”
First offense equals a warning, the second equals detention. Assigned for more than tardiness, detention is warranted for any violation to the student code of conduct.
“Actions equals consequences, I mean lunch detention… it’s there for a reason.” says senior Sharvi Wankhade.
Currently, only two weeks into the 2025-2026 school year, there have been zero lunch detentions. However, numbers are expected to spike second semester, due to “senioritis”, a chronic condition of senior laziness, and tardiness, as graduation approaches.
The current plan by admin for “senioritis” is to take advantage of the teacher spreadsheet for repeat offenders. Admin can easily step in to add consequences and if detention isn’t enough, the students can lose their parking pass for a day/week or receive a phone call home.
“River Hill is really good about getting the hint after one or two times.” Says Mr. Robb.