By: Melissa Nunes
Quickly walking into class a minute after the final bell because you had to make a pitstop at your locker happens to everyone from time to time. It usually results in an email or phone call home to your parents notifying them of your tardy. Every tardy later than thirty minutes is considered a cut. While the basis of our attendance policy seems adequate, there are some flaws in both the policy for cuts and for tardies.
According to the MHS student handbook, the lesser punishment for cuts accompanies three cuts, and results in only a call home. The greatest punishment results from accumulating 25 cuts, and is a letter to the Student Attendance Review Board, an attendance contract, Saturday School, and social probation. The punishments for the tardy policy are similar to those of cuts. They range from detentions, to work programs and Saturday schools; while it would be assumed that these would be good reinforcement techniques, in reality, they are doing nothing to solve the problem of students that are actually skipping class.
More likely than not, if students are skipping class, they will skip their detention, and if they skip their detention they may also skip their Saturday school. Most of the students getting the worse end of the punishment are students who are simply having bad days, missed the bus, or have a teacher who marks them tardy for coming into class ten seconds after the bell. For some students, it is impossible to get to class on time when they have classes across campus, or are coming from college courses at the X-building. While there has yet to be an infamous tardy sweep this school year, they caused a lot of stress to everyone on campus: people sprinting and tripping over themselves and each other just to get to class before the music ended.
However, the tardy sweeps did seem to be an efficient way to get students quickly into class. At the same time, this can not be the only solution. Rumors of ridding MHS of the tardy policy make it so undeserving people don’t get punished for their accidental lateness. In reality I feel that people intentionally cutting class and staying out late will not be swayed from their behaviors by the school or any punishments it will throw at them.
