Tardies are a thing students have struggled with for years, and a new policy introduced at South High this school year aims to keep the punishment for tardies consistent across classes.
This year the school has hired two new people to handle tardies and attendance–Kayla Penn and Adrianne Fuentes. Fuentes is in charge of tracking daily attendance, while Penn is responsible for tracking unexcused absences and tardies. Starting this school year, students with three total tardies will receive an hour of detention. An additional new rule is that five tardies will equate to three hours of detention, along with receiving a discipline referral. Six or more tardies will allow admin discretion ranging from a three-hour detention to OSS. Across the entire day, 12 total tardies will allow administration discretion, ranging from a warning phone call home to 1-hour detention. Juniors or seniors with over 12 tardies will be placed under a “tardy contract” where your parking pass will be revoked without refund if tardies continue beyond this point.
Kayla Penn, the teacher assistant in charge of unexcused absences and tardies, says she’s enjoying working at South High.
“I’m really enjoying my job so far, its a good use of my skills and I get to connect with everybody,” Penn said. “Parkway South is great, everyone is super friendly and the culture is warm. Everyone genuinely cares. Student communications can be difficult, getting students to say where they were and not taking accountability for their attendance by not communicating where they were.”
Sophomore Aiden Zaneghi says he thinks the new tardy policy is a good change.
“I think they’re really enforcing it and I honestly think it’s pretty fair. I think I’ll be tardy less this year,” said Zaneghi.
Assistant Principal Eric Wilhelm also supports the new policy.
“I think the new policy has done a lot to encourage students to go to class on time,” said Wilhelm. “I think that students spent a lot of time outside of class and got very comfortable coming late to either school or classes, and I think having a system has allowed there to be consistency that didn’t exist when each teacher had their own policy.”
Wilhelm said a school-wide tardy policy was definitely necessary.
“Teachers were frustrated with there not being a school-wide system, administrators were frustrated there were so many students late to classes, and parents were upset because students could be tardy three times and get detention in one class, and in other classes could be tardy ten times and not get a detention. There wasn’t enough consistency between classes. As human beings, we adjust behavior based on what the expectations are so if this is the norm students will get to class faster, so in that respect, I think it’s positive. If we’re preparing you to go to college or for a real-world job. It’s important to show up on time,” Wilhelm said. “Penn is the superhero of tardies!”
Sophomore Mia Balella says she thinks the change will have a positive impact on the school, but that it’s harder for the students.
“I don’t like the new tardy policy because it gives me anxiety to rush to class,” Balella said.
Biology teacher Jennifer Berger said she’s noticed positive effects of the tardy policy so far.
“I didn’t think very many teachers were following the tardy policy last year. There were so many kids out in the hallways, things were happening like fights. This year, the hallways are less crowded,” she said.
