Do you ever just hate when you really need to use the bathroom in between classes and after using the bathroom you’re on your way back to class and the bell rings, so you walk into class 10 seconds late but you are marked tardy? How does that make you feel? Most students at SPASH feel upset with being marked tardy and explaining the situation to their parents. 

The SPASH student policy

The SPASH tardy policy states that “All students are expected to be in classes on time and are expected to meet the expectations of all teachers relative to tardiness, if students are more than 10 minutes late to class, they are unexcused.” So this is saying that if you come into class 10 minutes late you will be marked unexcused. It says nothing about being tardy. This means your teacher gets to pick if you’re tardy or not. Which can really be confusing because your first-hour teacher could let you be 5 min late and not mark you tardy, but your second-hour teacher might say if you’re not in your seats when the bell rings you will be marked tardy.  But Hannah Hojnacki a senior at SPASH states that, “the set school policy is fair” but if she could change one nothing about it she would change “that teachers should not be able to make their own tardy policies.” In other words, she is saying that yes the school policy is fair but it would be really nice if everyone was on the same page and teachers couldn’t make up their own rules. Hannah also shared that, “it gets confusing when every teacher has different rules for the policy.”

In a survey that was posted for 53 SPASH students took and 71% said that it does get confusing when each teacher has a new rule for the tardy policy. So overall most SPASH students think it would be nice if everyone could be on the same page and not have to remember each policy for every teacher. This is very understandable because when you are in a rush you tend to forget things and might happen to confuse you about your teacher’s tardy policy. 

Why are students choosing to skip?

Even though our school has consequences for skipping or being tardy, students still are becoming tardy/ truant. Teachers and staff members at SPASH are still trying to figure out why kids are choosing to become truant or tardy. In the survey that was sent out of the 53 SPASH students who took it 36% answered they sometimes feel like skipping class if they are not feeling engaged with the class.  But 30.2% answered yes they skip class when they are not feeling engaged. So overall students feel they want to skip when the class is not too fun. This is hard for teachers to do anything about because they have to teach the criteria they can’t have every day as a fun activity.  

But 73% of the 53 students did say no they do not feel like they need to skip if their friends are skipping. So in other words the students who are choosing to skip are more than likely doing it because they do not want to be in class, not to just hang out with their friends. And most students who chose to skip know the consequences of their actions. 

As Hannah Hojnacki, SPASH senior stated,  “I think the consequences of skipping are fair because you shouldn’t be blamed for just being tardy one or twice but as you become a repeated offender you should be blamed.” 

So overall most SPASH students do think that we should all be on the same page with the tardy policy and only have one. We should not let teachers make up their own policies because it is confusing to the SPASH student body. Do you possibly have any suggestions for the policy? Maybe to the consequences so it would make you not want to skip more?