I love this series. Very good observation, I love how there are both undertones of harmony with the world but also deep dark fears of it was well.
I like this observations a lot. I got ISS in school before for being late more than 3 times. I was an extremely studious kid, but the problem was that I had to go to opposite sides of the school in 4 mins and if I had to pee or something it was impossible to get there on time.
Anyway my takeaway was that the punishment was completely counter productive to the cause. In ISS I was forced to miss like a week of direct teaching from all of my other classes, so I had to self-study and get extra materials assigned by all of my teachers. Most everyone else in ISS were likely to be there due to delinquency of some kind or another, but instead of being forced to apply themselves they were purposely isolated in a boring room all day with few rules. Even when it came to lunch we all were isolated from the rest of the student body.
Felt like a way to make the students who needed help or rigor even worse.