The teachers who worked most closely with some of the students I suspended would cringe at the thought of losing contact with them, especially when they worked so hard to keep these students caught up. One day a few of us who had been questioning this practice went for lunch and began to share our frustrations. It became clear very quickly that there were obvious reasons why conventional, out-of-school suspension systems, were failing our most at-risk, drug-impacted and affected teens.

The moment an out-of-school suspension was given, the teen…

fell further behind in his classes and was left in a position of returning with even less understanding of the material

felt even more isolated from the school the longer she was ostracised

was separated from the adults he most needed…at the timeSaturday, August 31, 2013

Lemuel Lyes, a collector of things historical and admin of the excellent website History Geek, made an excellent recent purchase of a dance card from what was described back in 1877 as the first County Ball in New Zealand. Which actually turned out to be a part-of-the-Eden-County ball, or Riding Ball (the Whau Riding was one of the wards of Eden County). I have yet to find any other "Riding Balls", so this looks to be the one and only example. Thank you, Lemuel, for permission to use these scans.

The County System replaced the Provincial Council System at the close of 1876. It took at least nine months for the Whau Riding to get their act together to stage the ball, which may well (as