Rising absences and tardies in recent years has caused concern from administration and teachers. To try and reduce said absences a new tardy policy is being put in place.
According to the tardy policy, a student’s first tardy is free, but after the second and third tardy, the parents are contacted. After four tardies, the student has to serve a detention, and after five or more tardies, a student success plan is curated. The student success plan brings the assistant principal in to identify boundaries the students have and helps them to overcome them.
One of the main points of the policy is that teachers are keeping track of and recording the tardies. Teachers like Karen Gipson are adjusting to the policy and following it.
“The first couple of days I was pretty lenient, but now I’m starting to see who my frequent fliers are,” Gipson said.
An increased amount of leeway in earlier years has led to many students being tardy or having unexcused absences prior to this year. In Sophomore Micah Maconnel opinion class time is often interrupted when numerous students are coming in late so it is not only disruptive to the teachers but also the classmates.
“If you’re missing out on vital information during the beginning of the class, then it would be important to [be in class],” Maconnel said.
When students come in late frequently, administrators believe it will hurt the student’s education in the future.
“If you’re not here, you can’t learn,” Principle Amy McAnarney said.“It affects your GPA, which again later in life can affect scholarship dollars when you go to college”.
The tardy policy is made to push students to get to school on time, but sophomore Michelle Kirkpatrick feels it generally just makes her more anxious in school because of the four minute passing period and the 1,800 kids in the school going to their next class.
“It becomes a problem because with passing periods and the students crowding the commons, it gets really hard to get to class on time,” Kirkpatrick said. “It becomes this huge thing and I just wish I didn’t have to worry about getting to class on time so much”.
Within the teacher and student critiques of the tardy policy there is room to grow, but the overall goal remains the same. Looking ahead, McAnarney hopes that the tardy policy works enough to make a significant difference.
“Our goals for the target policy is that when we looked down the halls and the bell has around that there would hardly be any students out in the halls,” McAnarney said.
