Abby Chachus || STAFF WRITER
MY OPINION
The problem with the new tardy policy is that no amount of detentions or strict rules will magically get students out of bed and come to school any faster. If a student truly wanted to be on time, they already would be.
There are obviously reasons that students don’t always get to school on time, but shouldn’t the AHS staff and administrators be helping students who can’t get to school on time, as opposed to punishing them?
Oversleeping, struggling with motivation, or juggling obligations of any kind are not problems that harsher rules can solve. For many students, mornings are a reflection of larger issues, whether it be late nights due to extracurricular activities, homework overloads, and for some, even mental health struggles. Adding punishments such as detention doesn’t erase these challenges.
If someone already finds it difficult to drag themselves out of bed, the threat of a detention isn’t suddenly going to create energy at 6:15 a.m. Policies like this miss an important reality: students and people in general develop bad habits through choice and circumstances, not punishment. Those who care about punishments already make the effort to arrive at school on time. For the students who don’t always get to school on time, for the most part, the motivation is not there yet.
As Ashleigh Warner said, “Beneath every behavior there is a feeling. And beneath every feeling there is a need. And when we meet that need rather than focus on the behavior, we begin to deal with the cause, not the symptom.”
YES
According to Principal Jimmy D’Andrea, this year’s attendance policy improves on last year’s by changing how tardiness data is collected, making the process more efficient and less disruptive to students’ class time. D’Andrea said, “It’s important to note that the policy is not changing, just the practice of the way we collect the data is.”
Last year, teachers were responsible for collecting data and marking students present, tardy, and absent. Many found it challenging because stopping class to mark a student tardy was different from previous practices. D’Andrea said, “A lot of teachers said that it was challenging because that’s not the way it was done in the past.” This method also created delays during first block classes.
This year, attendance is collected in the lobby as students enter if they arrive after 8:15, designed to avoid a long line and missing class. D’Andrea said, “We went back to something that was similar to the practice of a couple of years ago, but designed it very intentionally to get students to come to class as quickly as possible. We do not want lines up the door and students missing class.”
D’Andrea expressed that the punishments for being late, a detention after four tardies, was in place last year. He said that the student handbook did not change, the only thing that changed is the enforcement of these consequences.
The policy also allows for flexibility during events like bad traffic, excusing students so no one is unfairly penalized. “All the students were excused that morning [with bad traffic] because that’s not fair to the students,” D’Andrea said.
The goal is to motivate students to be on time and start their day positively, reducing stress and anxiety caused by running late. D’Andrea shared, “My hope is that students will be motivated to want to be in their first block class at the beginning, to not miss anything, and really get off to a positive start.”
NO
Junior Eleanor Linehan believes that last year’s tardy policy was better. “I personally preferred last year’s policy because it felt less stressful and gave students a chance to mentally prepare for the day,” she said.
Linehan explained that last year’s way of collecting data had some flaws, mainly because of inconsistencies: “The teachers were the ones marking people [tardy] last year, and since some teachers enforced the tardy rule more strictly than others, you may not have always been marked late.” She explained that students came to class at different times depending on the enforcement their teachers provided while this way of collecting data was in place. “In some classes you could walk in at 8:25 and not be marked late, while in others you would be marked late the second you walked through the door after 8:15.”
Still, Linehan said she “100% liked last year’s better on a personal level because it made mornings less stressful.”
While she admitted there are more inconsistencies in last year’s data collection system and acknowledged that this year’s stricter rules and detention system “will push more people out of bed earlier,” she wished it didn’t have to be that way. “I don’t know anyone who would say they like this year’s policy more than last year’s,” she said.
