Lincoln High School at the beginning of this semester implemented a new and adjusted version of the tardy policy for its students. While certainly controversial among students, the data has shown that the policies are effective in getting students in class on time and holding students responsible for their attendance and habits. Our principal, Mark Larson, explained to us that he, the LHS admin, and other staff were all concerned about significantly rising numbers of tardies and truancies in recent years and semesters, and spent the better part of a month collaborating and crafting this new policy.
The new tardy policy is certainly more strict and punishing than previous policies, which has shown improvement in attendance, but this isn’t without its flaws. when we asked a student here at LHS, Faith Gottula, what she thought, she said, “It can help provide a structured environment,” and also explained how the new policy is multi-leveled and helps keep students responsible. However she did bring up a fairly prominent criticism of the new policy, that being the choice to count first period tardies against students. She explained that there are a variety of reasonable and realistic barriers that keep students from getting to first period on time that may be outside of student control. Siblings taking siblings to school, weather conditions, and more were all brought up, and Faith believes these things should be taken into account more.
On the other hand, social studies teachers, Thomas Madden and Carol Flora, both appreciate the policy and its effects. Mrs. Flora described how students are “making a concerted effort” to get to class on time. And Mr. Madden described himself seeing similar behavior from students, and accompanied this by noting that students care to explain why they are tardy more often now, which he also appreciates. Mrs. Flora did briefly explain that a negative was that since the policy was implemented in the middle of the school year, so the adjustment period was a bit messy, but reassured us that everyone has now adjusted to the policy.
But why? Mr. Larson explains that they went down this route is because they wanted a consistent and maintainable system to hold students accountable. This was especially urgent to the staff of LHS because of rising numbers in tardies and truancies, but it seems they are pretty confident that the policy has done its job and is here to stay.
