Should student infractions appear on a student's transcript?

Should detentions and other school infractions be posted on a student’s official transcript?

College is a time for maturing. It is a time in a young person’s life that enables growth through experiences and learning. Everyone makes minor mistakes in their past and it is the hope that students have learned from those mistakes and moved on. Detentions and infractions are definitely something that should be monitored by the high school for each individual student, but it is not something that should show up on a transcript and in the hands of a college admission professional.
Students have a lot on their plate in the 2010’s. The current generation of students are involved with SO many activities that it can be overwhelming at times. We receive activity sheets that are 3 pages long with the amount of extra-curricular work that a student does and it is really astounding sometimes that a student could even have the time to do half of the list. Now bringing this point back to topic, if a student were to get detention for something like being late to school 3 times in a row, but the reason they were late is because they volunteer at a hospital at 630AM every day, then should we really punish this student?
Another thing to note is the disparity in the laws at each high school and what would qualify students for detention. At my high school, students wouldn’t get detention unless they got into a fight or was rude to an administrator of faculty member. At other schools, students can get detention for wearing a shirt that has illicit words or images on it. Again, should a college really dismiss a student because they wore a shirt that said “Budweiser” on it??
Finally, if you were to consider the job application realm and the process through which companies screen their candidates, there is usually a background check component. That background check scans through an individual’s crime sheet and alerts the company before they were to hire an ex-convict. But let us pause for a second and compare apples to apples- do companies request a student’s permanent record from college and check to make sure that their candidate went through college without having to face a judicial report? No, they do not.
From the college point of view, detentions and infractions are serious offenses – at the high school level-but it should not be a determinant in admission to college because a student’s worth is so much higher than one or two detentions and it is the hope of higher education professionals across the country that higher education is an opportunity-an opportunity for a change, for maturity and for growth. Leave the past in the past and let’s continue to bring out the potential in students.

Mike Tarantino, Sacred Heart University.