My high school solved that by making all suspensions "in school" suspensions. You were sequestered in a classroom with the other miscreants. You were not allowed to talk to anyone but the ISS teacher, who was a mean wrestling coach. You were assigned double or triple homework, which had to be completed before you were allowed out of ISS, and you automatically received Fs on all that homework.

Those things removed all motivation for 'vacation.' No one wanted to get suspended.

Oh wow, that sounds educational, or rather its opposite. Sounds trivial to hack though. You have no incentive to actually do the homework other than the time, so just drag it out to the maximum time. I'm sure the coach would love to stay watching one kid to 2AM.

I guess it's just being older that you realize school is a fake world anyway, and expulsion is not a real punishment except to the school's budget. The community college path is cheaper and better anyway.

No, if the homework didn't get done, the coach went home at his usual time and the next day the kid had to come back to ISS instead of going back to regular classes.

Expulsion was a real punishment back then. It may be less so nowadays, I'm not sure, but when I was in high school, without a diploma it was very difficult to get any kind of job beyond something menial, and nearly impossible to get into any kind of higher education, including community college.

Then again, two generations earlier than mine, you could support a family on an 8th-grade education -- although an 8th-grade education a hundred years ago involved more than a high school diploma these days.