by Victoria Ramirez | staff writer
With the new school year starting up and students getting a feel for the hallways again, teachers are taking the initiative to make sure students spend more time in the classroom and not in the hallways with new tardy sweeps.
On the first day the tardy sweeps were deployed, only 53 students out of potentially over 3,000 were marked tardy during all eight periods.
“This year’s [tardy policy] is different because the tardies are cumulative; they’re not each class and there’s a certain set of punishments when you hit 7, 14, 21, you get lunch detention and then after that you get more than that,” co-founder of the new policy Charles Owsley said.
The hope for the new tardy policy is that it will be a system that can be brought back year after year in order to avoid students lingering in the hallways.
“A lot of schools use [tardy policies] and it just got ridiculous last year with all the kids that were tardy and it’s not just a tardy policy it’s about creating a certain environment at Johnson and the faculty have gotten behind us now where we are really focusing on tardies,”Owsley said. “It’s called Start on Time and dress code and keeping kids in class and not letting them get out and roam the hallways. It’s just because we got so big that the administration can’t handle it all of it, so now it is time for the teachers to step and take care of some of the little things ourselves.”
With only two weeks into the school year the tardy policy has already proved successful.
“I think it’s already helped, I think you can tell in the hallways, and we haven’t really put it into full swing yet which hopefully next week we will begin to do,” Owsley said.
Some students have questioned whether this policy will work because of the misconception that tardy students would have to report downstairs in order to get a tardy, resulting in an even later arrival time.
“They are not going to go down stairs, there is going to be teachers in the hallways with computers and we are going to log on and put in the tardies ourselves,” Owsley said.
Despite what some students may think, this will make it easier for students to get to class by only having to give a teacher your ID, and it will save you the walk to the attendance office.
“I think it will work. So far it’s been effective for the most part but you will have students who will still decide to slag around but the staff is doing a good job making sure students get to class on time so they should keep it up,” senior Edel Wambui said.
With last year’s policy proving to not be as effective as this year’s, surprisingly, students themselves are noticing a difference around the campus.
“This policy is definitely more effective than last year because last year there were too many people walking around in the hallways and such and it’s a good thing they started the turning your phone in when you go to the restroom that way they get back to class faster,” Wambui said.
