MBHS Administration Adds a new Tardy Policy for Second Semester
Before returning to school for a second semester, all students were met with an email on Jan. 6 from Principal Scott Schalde informing them of a new policy regarding tardy consequences. This email was all of 10 lines, including Schalde’s sign-off. It briefly touched on the start date of the policy (Jan. 7), and on the guidelines of the policy, “any student who accumulates more than three tardies in a single week will be asked to participate in campus beautification.”
While questions were welcomed by Schalde in his email, students around campus have been upset, anxious, and curious about the new policy. Sophomore Addyson Janovec said, “It’s good that we’re being early and keeping [tardies] on track, but at the same time, as with any policy at the school, it’s really harsh at first and then they forget about it,” already setting up expectations of this “harsh” policy failing. Senior Hayden Gentry said, “I think it’s a little over the top, but I recognize that a lot of the issues are time management.”
Though they are at different points in their high school careers, these two students share similar opinions on the new policy and believe that it is too strict. Neither student felt fully informed about the policy and required an explanation of what is entailed. Teachers, however, were aware that this policy would be put in place weeks before it was announced to students.
Teacher opinions differ around campus regarding how students have reacted and if it’s a satisfactory policy. Linnae Coiner had a strong opinion on student tardiness and said, “I think something has to be done because there's too many tardies, so it’s a start… more should be done.” Steve Gade simply said, “I think the new tardy policy is terrific.”
Observing behavior of students from the first week back at school, Gade said he noticed “anxiety, outrage, and intent to not comply,” while Coiner said that she hadn’t noticed a change in student behavior. “It doesn’t seem to have fazed them yet, because it hasn’t hit them yet,” said Coiner.
Assistant Principal Ben Davis and Assistant Principal Will Wallace had answers about why this new policy was put in place and how they hope it positively impacts the campus. Wallace said, “The new policy is not frivolous, it wasn’t just some off the cuff thing… we wanted to come up with something that was reasonable, fair, and was going to help get kids to class on time.
“We feel that we owe it to kids to provide them with everything they’re going to need to be really successful in life and part of that starts right here… it has a lot to do with expecting the best out of them. That means we want kids to come to school, be prepared, and try hard in class… but tardies are just one small component of that,” said Wallace.
“Student attendance is the best it’s been in like seven years… the kids that are late, it's honestly not gratuitous,” said Davis, “you can be late sometimes, this is going to reset every week. The number of students that this would potentially impact is really very low; maybe less than five percent of the school population.”
Davis said the repercussions for students receiving over three tardies in a week would be a contribution to school beautification, which the students were already informed about. Specifically, he said that this is 25 minutes out of a student’s lunch period and would be, “picking up trash, scraping gum, whatever else comes up… maybe weeding the rocks.” However, both Davis and Wallace are aware that one policy does not work for every student, and they are prepared to be flexible and adjust the policy with every circumstance.