The Off the Mark Disciplinary System (OTM) was added to the Nerinx Hall Handbook on January 11, 2016. This system eliminates detentions and is intended to be a trust based system. Each student receives an OTM card. On the back of the card are the infractions that will result in a “mark.” A mark is given when a student breaks a rule. However, certain rules will result in more marks depending on the seriousness of the offense. There are only four, “three mark violations”: disrespectful attitude toward anyone in the community, dishonesty, smoking, and not having one’s OTM card.

On the front of the OTM is the student’s name, grade, and three columns. The three columns represent three marks, the total number of marks a student can receive before further action is taken. Once a student receives three marks, she must go speak to a mentor. The mentors are teacher volunteers whose goal is to work with the student. According to the email students received explaining the new system, the goal of a mentor is, “to assist the student in identifying the problem, to help the student understand what new behavior is necessary to fix the problem, and to encourage the student to accept responsibility for her actions. Students are tasked with forming the solution for the problem at hand and focus[ing] on applying learning ideas and strategies to adjust behavior and attitude.” The mentor is neither assigned to the student nor chosen by the student. The mentor system is on a rotating schedule and two mentors will be on duty each week. The OTM system is still undergoing renovations and is using the second semester of the 2015-2016 school year a trial run. But as Socrates once said, “The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.”