It's a "swear jar" and don't tell me you've never seen those. However, if they courts do make the students pay the fines, then some or all of the fine should go back to the school system and not the general municipal fund.

I know you want to have kids beaten again - but parent's can't really discipline kids like that anymore w/o getting CPS/DYFS involved for child abuse in a lot of cases; so how is the school going to be able to do that again? Teachers have been forbidden to strike students even back when I was in High School, in the late Pleistocene. The Asst. Principal had a stick, IIRC, that would be used on the behinds of kids, though. And it did keep people in line for the most part.

Until this measure, schools have really had their teeth pulled in disiplinary matters. Detention and suspension mean next to nothing to jaded, hardened high schoolers - and getting tossed out for a couple of days is also a "status symbol" (trust me, I've seen 2 boys through a relatively "tough" High School, and them getting suspended for various things just made them cooler with their peer group). Making the parents pay a fine (or making the students pay a fine) is going to wake the family up, and then the kids will get a REAL punishment.

I think a taste of the real world isn't out of line. And it's better to get done with the court system with something akin to a traffic ticket than it is with a more serious crime.