Help! I'm being held prisoner in a Dilbert comic strip!

[Reader Rabbit]

Student tardies are an ongoing problem in our building. Teachers have been going crazy trying to get admin to step up and provide the chronic latecomers and hall-wanderers with some serious tough love, but thus far nothing has been done. Until now.

One of our VP's sent out the following email, and now I'm wondering whether the "solution" is crazy or I am.

We'll have our next meeting regarding Tardies on Tuesday in the library @ 8:15. We will review the reasons why students are tardy (a staff-created list - see below) and identify items where the staff have the ability to influence the behavior. We will compile two lists of building-wide strategies: One list for Tardy Prevention, the other list for Tardy Response. SO....If your interested in this topic, you're certainly welcome to join-in on the the conversation and share your thoughts, concerns and solutions with your colleagues.

For your reference, here again is the summary from the first meeting:

PRESENT:
1 7th Grade Teacher
1 Special Education Teacher
2 ESL Teachers
2 Coaches
3 Admin.
1 Counselor
4 Elective teachers

1. Groups discussed why tardies were an issue.
   
   * Themes: Tardies were Distracting and Disruptive to the learning environment.
   * Instructional Time: If students were 3 to 5 minutes late per tardy, multiply number of tardies (see below) = minutes of lost instruction time
   * Time: Between talking with student, teachers, parents and arranging consequence response = 30 minutes per Tardy referral. Secretaries spending time to deal with kids coming late or writing late passes for tardy kids.
   * Financial cost: some staff described staying out in hall longer than the allotted passing time to move kids along. How many minutes per day spent getting kids to class? This equates to a portion of salary being paid for dealing with tardies.
   
   
2. Reviewed Data: Below is the YEAR breakdown of Tardy's across the building, by grade. (as of 3/5/09).
   
   
   
   
   99+ tardies: 8th = 3, 7th = 0, 6th = 0 Total = 3
   
   75+ tardies: 8th = 8, 7th = 0, 6th = 0 Total = 8
   
   50+ tardies: 8th = 25, 7th = 3, 6th = 4 Total = 32
   
   25+ tardies: 8th = 57, 7th = 16, 6th = 14 Total = 87
   
   15+ tardies: 8th = 97, 7th = 41, 6th = 36 Total = 174
   
   10+ tardies: Total = 268
   
   5+ tardies: Total = 435
   
   <5 tardies: Total = 747
   
   
   
   Initial Data Observations:
   
   * Large Discrepancy between 8th grade and the other grades in each category.
   * Most kids have less than 5 tardies (747) - which includes kids with zero to 4 tardies for the year.
   * There seems to be a core group of kids that have the greatest tardy issues
   
   
3. Groups discussed possible reasons why kids are tardy. Each group compiled a list. The lists were combined to the following:
   
   * Using the locker
   * Socializing
   * Unclear consequences for tardies
   * Inconsistent consequences for tardies
   * Going to the bathroom
   * Late release from class
   * No bells
   * Clock issues
   * Class avoidance
   * Hallway drama
   * Meeting with staff (teachers, counselors, admin., front office)
   * Parents not getting student to school on time
   * Work ethic
   * Lack of responsibility
   * Habit
   * Power Play/Oppositional
   * Gain Attention
   * Use Time to do unlawful activity
   * Get food
   * Lack of time management (staff and/or students)
   * Proximity - must go to locker and across building in 3 minutes
   * Packed hallways
   * Not knowing where to go / classroom assignments unclear
   * Late bus
   * Oversleeping
   

I really like this administrator, but this response to the problem seems ludicrous: an extreme over-complication of a very straightforward issue. What do other teachers here think?

[Whoa_Nelly]

1. A lot of our Period 1 tardies are due to...

school clock and bell set 4 minutes ahead of real time.

Parents have complained, but no one has fixed the clock.

I usually wait until 5 minutes after the bell before I submit my first attendance for the day.
Several of my (high school) students are getting themselves to school, and I am glad they get to class.

[Reader Rabbit]

5. We have late-wakers and bus-missers, too.

Still, most of our tardies are the result of kids hanging out in the hallways too long during passing period. I have two of the three eighth graders with more than 100 tardies for the school year so far, and they are simply gabbing with their friends when they should be getting to class.

One of them has the class right next door the period before he has me. He has to walk all of ten or twelve yards in five minutes, and yet he still arrives to class 2-3 minutes late on a regular basis.

I think if the administrators would come down hard on the ten or so kids who have more than 75 tardies, it would go a long way toward convincing the other kids to get to their classes on time!

[Duer 157099]

2. Hmm. I must be so used to living inside Dilbert that I don't even notice anymore

I actually liked reading that - it shows that the admin is aware of all the issues, and I don't think it's as straightforward as you suggest. It *is* a complicated issue, but I would have focused on the last element more than the others (the reasons and possible solutions).

I have a high-schooler, so I'm painfully aware of the role the parent plays in this (mea culpa!)

[Extend a Hand]

3. I actually kind of like that approach

I think you're more likely to get a policy that addresses the different reasons for tardiness appropriately.

[zazen]

4. just curious: what time is your school starting? your eldest kids are the most late

It still doesn't excuse it, if you're having to get up at 5 AM and working 60 hours a week as an underpaid teacher. BUT . . . the start time for high schools and most middle schools around here (in the Triangle region of NC) doesn't make much sense to me. In your seat bell time for the FIRST CLASS, is 7:15 AM, which means kids are getting on buses as early as 5:45 and 6 AM, which means they're waking up as early as 5 AM. These are adolescents, whose bodies generally go to bed late and wake up late. Your study showed that the 8th graders had the highest rate of tardiness. I wonder if it's complicated by their being in puberty.

A girl was raped at her bus stop around 6:15 AM a few years ago---maybe made easier because it was almost dark. Parents had to go to work and couldn't wait with her.

I'm lucky--my high schooler goes to a charter school with a first bell at 9 AM--and I took her out of the county public school system in 6th grade because of a 7:15 AM bell schedule which I knew her father would never be able to make and, if they miss three times, gets them suspended.

I also don't like high schoolers ending up at home at 3:00 PM. Lots of time to get in trouble before their parents get home.

[Reader Rabbit]

6. School starts at 9:05. Busses start picking up kids around 8:15 or 8:30.

The high schools start earlier than we do, and so do the elementary schools.

[Bucky]

7. We handle it with a "lunch detention"

If a student has a tardy, they have to sit in a no-talking side room from the lunch hall and only get a sack lunch to eat.

It was a great deterrent for about two months; then the chronic latecomers started not minding it that much. The population has now started to overwhelm the lunch detention room. The only thing that works is after school detentions.

[Reader Rabbit]

8. We've tried both lunch detentions and after school detentions.

As you say, they work for a bit, then the kids just start right up again. If only they were that consistent with their school work, they'd all be straight A students!

[noamnety]

9. you really don't have bells?

That seems like on obvious thing that needs fixing.

After some frustration with hallway lingerers we added a one minute warning bell before the start bell for each class. We recognize that kids WILL talk to their friends between classes, but this way the know "okay, NOW I have to get going."

I'm not saying it's a magic fix, but if you aren't even giving them a way to track when they really need to hustle along, the rest will be much harder to fix.

In the classrooms, our bells are an appropriate volume. In the halls - they are ungodly loud, like a fire alarm. Speaking for myself here - I try to avoid being in the halls when the bell rings because it is so unpleasant and panic-inducing. Some percentage of the kids must be reacting the same way.

[Reader Rabbit]

10. We have bells that ring at random times.

Apparently, they were scheduled to ring at those times ages ago. Some of us have asked for years why the bells can't be fixed, but we have received no definitive answer. I suspect it's a money issue. Either that or the system's so old, no one understands how it works anymore.

Plus, each grade has a different schedule, in order to reduce congestion (and shenanigans) in the halls during passing periods. That might make the bells a big problem, as well.