Administration cracks down on tardy students

With tardies becoming an increasing problem in the 2013-2014 year, the administration has decided to crack down on the problem. Hundreds of students have been receiving detentions at an average rate of 33 students per week.

The new process allows for the office to directly assign students the punishments, instead of making teachers responsible for the decision. Since November, all students who are tardy more than once a week, have been at risk for detention.

The change was implemented after school-wide tardies began to increase from August to November. Last school year, 10,342 students were tardy between August and November. But this school year, 11,445 students have been tardy in the same time period.

“Most of them are tardy from the morning or lunch,” said attendance clerk Samantha  Brown.

Last year, the attendance office decided to increase tardy sweeps to stop student tardies after lunch. While student tardies after lunch decreased, tardies before school only went up. Thirty-four percent of tardies are in first period, compared to 26 percent in 2011-2012.

“We won’t give a set number of tardies you have to get before we send out a detention, but after one tardy, you are at risk for a detention,” said Brown.

When the office assigns detentions at the start of each week, the students get two days to serve them. If not, the students get Saturday school.

While many students disagree with the new policy, some students think that the new system will help improve the school.

“Kids who care about attendance won’t be late,” said senior Andrew Barney.

     “It is only to improve the number of students going to class. We want everybody in class every day, as adults, you wont have the option to be tardy,” said Brown.