I’ve argued this before and I hope not ad nauseum. Perhaps it would be best to put the category of trivial offense in a context. Matrices are not robotic. A student who has never been a problem forgets to take his gum out of his mouth and upon entering the building and is off to the office to be paddled. It ain’t going to happen. No parent would put up with that and the all the kids, teachers, and administrators (except for a few super legalistic ones) would say give him a break.
Why have matrices if you’re going to be that flexible? Good question. Deterrence is something that has to be black and white. The matrix is a way of letting the student know you choose the behavior and you choose the consequence and you are liable to be paddled.