Which policy is giving taxpayers the best return on their money?
I've visited a few high school classrooms recently and they have slipped badly as learning places since I was in high school over 30 years ago. The biggest problem I saw was a complete lack of discipline and focus by a significant number of students who constantly disrupted the class by ignoring the teacher, talking to each other loudly, wandering in and out of the class, and, yes, even sleeping. I felt pity for the good kids who were there to learn because the net effect of the "I'll do whatever I feel like doing" disrupters was adversely impacting the good kids' learning experience as well.
Maybe this high school has similar problems and this is the way this particular teacher decided to deal with it. If you have problems like that, piecemeal solutions and half-measures generally don't work. Neither does docking students in ways that don't bother them, like giving them demerits for citizenship.
By the time kids get to college the disruption problem generally solves itself. The really undisciplined kids tend to self-select out. Sometimes it only takes one tough, demanding teacher to light a fire of self-discipline in a kid. Paradoxically, by firing this teacher the school board may denying scores of kids a real chance to succeed in life.
I homeschooled, and my son didn't go to high school, but started in full time at the local community college when he was in 10th grade.
He says students sleep in class, and he's always amazed at the attendance, or lack thereof, of some students.
But a grade on an assignment shouldn't be tampered with, unless for cheating, IMHO.
If you want to include class participation, or lack thereof, in your evaluation of the student, factor it into the final grade for the class.
My son has had prof's who wanted good attendance, or class participation to be part of the grade, so they factored that into the final score (i.e. attendance in class counted as a tenth of your grade, or attentiveness in class counted as a percentage of your final grade, etc.)
If this teacher handled it like those profs, then I don't think there'd be an argument.
Disrupters are another issue. If somebody who knows the stuff, smokes the test, wants to take a nap in class, I have no problem with it.
The appropriate action by a teacher to combat this, is to TEACH SOMETHING while the student is sleeping, and have that SOMETHING on the next test.
What the hell is the teacher doing in that class where you can snooze through it and still smoke the assignments and tests?
Good riddance teach.