Tardies have been increasing in recent weeks as more students get to school late or just wander the halls after the bell has rung. AHS administration has been trying to crack down on tardy students by giving detentions out.
“It [being tardy] impacts their [student’s] instruction. When they walk into class late, they are not getting an understanding of the material or what is expected of them,” principal Shawn DeRose said. “I also think when we talk about skills and habits, we want our students at Annandale to make sure that they are responsible and showing up to things on time.”
AHS tracks students’ attendance, specifically tardies, on a week to week basis. Every week the attendance office will take the data from the previous week and hand out detentions to the students with the most frequent tardiness. Detentions are held on Wednesdays.
“I think the tardy policy should be more relaxed because punishing kids for missing class by making them lose time to catch up seems counterintuitive, especially since some kinds can’t help their circumstances and showing up late,” senior Jocelyn Ventura said.
Currently AHS does not have any plans to change their tardy policy, but they will reevaluate at the end of the year to see where the policy’s successes and weaknesses are.
“I think that the tardy policy is fair because it is important for people to get to class,” senior Anna Delaney said. “Sometimes people run late or behind, however, I think allowing three tardies a week is lenient because we all know what time classes are and by now we all know how long it takes for us to get to our classes.”
Certain times of day have a higher amount of tardies than others. The morning has the most late students with morning traffic and waking up late contributing to this. The very end of the day and the transition between W4 and Pride Time also has high numbers.
“I think that the tardy policy should be less strict in order to allow people to have more flexibility in their schedules,” senior Amen Alemu said.