I can't help you with that; that's a personal problem.
I have no idea why exactly what the kids in this story did
Of course you have no idea ... the authors of this rage-bait article didn't tell you. They obviously don't want you to know. Funny how it works that way.
You can be sure they did something that deserved punishment ... and the lack of official channels for meaningful punishment inevitably leads to unofficial punishment ... in this case, punishment that is ill-advised and inappropriate.
I believe that the biggest short term problem in our schools is a lack of student discipline,
Well ain't that something ... you see the problem. What do you suppose might be the solution? The "right" solution?
Sure, that makes sense. But what does the general lack of discipline and of appropriate punishments have to do with exactly what the kids kid? Did they not shut up when told to? Fight? Be disrespectful? If the issue is the general lack of available punishments, then the issue you want discussed is making better punishments available for teachers.
But that still has nothing to do with whatever it was those kids did. You could write the article to focus on the lack of alternative punishments available to teachers. And still not need to know the details of the offenses.
And that's leaving entirely out of the issue the fact that you are trying to dictate what subject the author wanted to write about. The article was written based on a lawsuit filed by parents, which is where the author would have gotten their facts. The lack of appropriate alternative punishments is some things that the individual teachers might raise in their defense, but we have no idea whether or not that was done, or whether that information was even available to the author.