The Shawnee H.S. policy regarding tardiness states that if a student arrives at school after home room has begun, he is tardy. If a studnet arrives after home room has been dismissed, he is considered absent and receives no credit for the day. The purpose of such a strict policy is to minimize the number of students showing up to school late on a daily basis due to lack of consequence. It is true that without consequence, many students would undoubtedly arrive tardy. However, the policy our school has in place is ineffective in what it's trying to achieve.
If one were to remove all the extraneous wording from the policy and present what it states in plain English, the problem is quite prominent. If a student arrives at school any later than 7:30 a.m., he might as well not show up at all. This might work effectively towards a student who is late with frequency or a student with a poor attendance record. These individuals would be made nervous for fear of not recieving credits for those days marked absent. But what about the average pupil in Shawnee. This student has good attendance, maybe a late or two, and is concerned about his grades and academic achievements. One morning this student arrives late at school for one reason or another, and it could be as innocent as he needed to put gas in his car, his car wouldn't start, a power surge overnight shut his alarm clock off, poor weather and dangerous road conditions, et cetera, and he is marked absent because he was eleven minutes late. He receives no credit for the day and might as well stay home.
I cannot stress enough how overly stringent our policy on tardiness/absence is. By trying to keep students in school, the policy is actually shunning them away. This is not right, and the policy must be changed. Instead of a mere inconvenience to the majority of students at Shawnee, the attendance policy should serve one purpose, and one purpose only. There is a small group of students that miss a lot of school and arrive late on a regular basis. The purpose of the policy should be to pressure these students to improve their attendance.
One solution to this problem would be to begin a policy in which disciplinary action is taken against student who are frequently late to school. For example, each marking period, a student is given a set number of "free lates", which would be an instance where the student arrives to school late and recieves no punishment. Once a student surpasses his set number of free lates, a disciplinary action is taken against the student. This could be, for instance, an administrative detention. To tie the policy up, a new line must be drawn separating "late" from "absent." It would be reasonable to establish that if a student arrives prior to the beginning of 3rd period, he is considered late. Any time after that, he is marked as absent. That draws a definitive line, and the new policy is complete. It is convenient and fair because it is not a nuisance to students who aren't frequently tardy, and it gives the students who do have a habit of arriving to school late very little leniency before they are punished for their tardiness.