Summer School: "It's almost like school in there!"

Not just an outstanding piece of cinema from 1987 (OK, outstanding might be a bit much) but also a harsh, 3 1/2 hour a day, 3 week reality for several "regular school year" slackers...and I'm teaching.
So far my class has lost more than half its numbers to the strict rules of summer school:

• Sleepers are out for good after one warning
  
• One absence
  
• Accumulate 15 minutes of tardy and it counts as an absence
  
• ANY disciplinary action outside of the classroom will get you the boot.

The first to go were the habitual sleepers. Then those who missed class the day of the test all year, missed the first then the second second test of summer school too and when the principal followed through they were stunned. The last group to go were those lulled into a false enough sense of security during the second week to smoke front of the picture window outside of the principals office.

I am now down to those who really want the credit. They seem to want to do well and have engaged the material in a way that I am sure none of them have before. It's good to see this side of students, many of whom I had in class. They know the rules and they abide. Now in our third week the survivors seem to have moved past whining and just do what is asked. Don't get me wrong they aren't blowing the lid off the curve, but they are learning, something that I wasn't sure could happen in summer school, and it makes me smile. And no one has gone to the bathroom for the entire term.