Why Students Are Tardy

Brooke Hammond

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Tardiness is probably the most annoying part of attendance rules that students have to deal with. Here at Powell High School, our tardy system is simple; if you are late to school or class, you will have silent lunch detention. If you do not go to silent lunch there will be greater punishments. I have realized that students would rather skip the entire school day just to avoid silent lunch punishments. The reason for this behavior is that many schools would rather have students receive harsh punishments for being tardy, even if they are just a couple of minutes late. Sometimes these punishments do not make any sense, such as, if you have a certain amount of tardies you will lose your driving privileges. I disagree with this because there is a greater chance of students coming to school late than not coming at all due to the school taking their driving privileges away, which seems to be contributing to the issue rather than solving it. For example, students who live on Emory road can take as long as 20 minutes to make it to school due to traffic. In addition to that, students who have to drop their siblings off at school must wait in the morning carline traffic which makes getting to school on time a difficult feat. Students should not be given 30-minute detention for being tardy due to something that is out of their control, and especially not suspended for it. Although some students choose to be tardy on purpose, that is not every student's intention. Tardiness is a problem, but our schools should really think about why those students are actually late and try and help the problem rather than punishing them for outside factors.