Swept up
A new tardy policy affects late students
January 23, 2018
To hopefully reduce the overall amount of tardies, a new tardy policy went into effect on Jan 10.
Instead of teachers just marking a student as tardy on PowerSchool, the policy dictates that they are to close their doors when the tardy bell rings while late students are moved to two designated locations – the auditorium in the first floor and the media center on the second floor. Once students arrive at those locations, they will conference with administrators and teachers about why they are tardy. where they will be talked to about why they were tardy.
“I really want everyone to know and understand that the purpose behind the tardy sweeps is not punitive, it’s not to get anybody in trouble,” White said. “It’s not to have a confrontation or anything like that. We really want to students to know that we care about their education and their life, and part of that is learning how important it is to keep time.”
After the students have been addressed, staff members escort them to their classrooms. The policy also include consequences for students who are frequently tardy to class.
“If we notice that a student is continually tardy, then we will put them on a hall restriction, which means we go and get them from each one of their classes early and have them sit in the office during all seven minutes of the passing period and we escort them to their next class,” White said. “That way they don’t get to utilize the passing period. That will last for a week, and if they meet all the requirements of the hall restriction, they are taken off of the hall restriction.”
Depending on the amount of tardy students, the process takes less than 10 minutes. However, sophomore Ashtin Holman, a student who is rarely tardy, sees the process as too lengthy and unneeded.
“People are going to be tardy and they will make up whatever reason they want to,” Holman said. “I just find it redundant to be taking up more time when they could have just been in there with a tardy. I just find it unnecessary.”
Sophomore Ky Musselman, who is frequently tardy, agrees.
“The tardy sweep angers me because they shouldn’t have it at all,” Musselman said. “It wastes time for the students.Instead they could just mark you down as a tardy on PowerSchool. I feel like they don’t have to go through this huge process. Kids aren’t going to learn better. They aren’t going to learn to not skip to avoid the tardy sweep.”
Despite the negative opinions of some students, White remains hopeful. He believes the tardy sweeps will help teach students about life skills such as time management.
“My job as a building administrator is to make sure we have a positive and productive learning environment and part of that is making sure students are attending class on time,” White said. “I think it’s really important that we teach life skills; being on time is a life skill. We, the teachers and administrators at the school, want to make sure we can instill that in everybody.”
