A Few Simple Things: Punctuality

    Have you ever worked in a job where you could come in late, leave early, and be late to every meeting all day with no consequences?  If you have, please let me know so I can tell students in my public school system where to look for work.  We teach our students nothing about the importance of being where they are supposed to be when they are supposed to be there.  The reason this is a problem is very much the same as with the other “Simple Things”  I have discussed:  that we as a school system do next to nothing to enforce our own policies.  It is even worse in the case of students being tardy as we have changed our policy to ensure that we do not have to even address the issue. We are even worse with students being tardy than we are with attendance.
     Keep in mind the policy I am about to describe is new this school year, and actually tougher than our previous policy.  I’m not kidding.  Each time a student is tardy to one of their seven classes, the teacher has the student sign a tardy slip.  The teacher then will turn the tardy slip in to the student’s administrator.  The student is not approached about their tardy by their administrator until they have accumulated 5 tardy slips.  With their fifth tardy the student is finally called down to see their administrator.
     This meeting between the student and administrator will consist of a basic discussion about the importance of being on time.  Then to reinforce this discussion the administrator will demonstrate to the student just how important being on time is by giving the student a warning followed up with no other consequence.  The next time the administrator follows up with the student will be after the student has reached tardy number 10.  Somehow I doubt we have taught this student anything about the importance of showing up to work on time.     In fairness, the consequences get more severe  (not really) as the student continues to accumulate sets of five tardy slips.  10 tardy slips will get the offending student a lunch detention.  15 tardy slips will cost the offending student a second lunch detention.  20 tardy slips will finally get the student an actual consequence, a day of In School Suspension.  The best part – the tardy count starts over at the end of the first semester.  So, in theory, a student could have 38 tardy slips (19 each semester) and the worst consequence the student would face would be lunch detention.  What do we honestly think will happen when this student gets a job and demonstrates what his/her public high school education taught them about the importance of being on time?  What happens when this student shows up for work late for the 38th time?  The answer is we will never know, because we have taught this student how to get fired long before they reach their 38th tardy slip.
     Another negative effect of allowing students to be repeatedly late to class is the loss of instructional time for the other students in the classroom.  The loss of instructional time for the tardy student is apparent.  However, each tardy also takes instructional time away from every other student in the class.  Instruction stops as the teacher gives the offending student their tardy slip.  Instruction time is lost with the distraction of the offending student getting to their seat and getting ready for class which has already started.  I admit this is not a lot of lost time if it happens once or twice.  However, consider what the policy, and its enforcement, is encouraging.  We have students walk into class several minutes into instructional time on an every class period basis.  Many classes have multiple students late to each class.     If what we are teaching within and outside of the curriculum is important, then it has to be equally important for our students to be in class on time and ready to receive the instruction.  We are failing our students by not holding them accountable for failing to meet the expectations of their school environment.  We act as if we are doing our students a favor by allowing them to get by on the “Simple Things”.  The truth of it is that each “Simple Thing” we allow them to get by with is a missed opportunity, a failure to teach them the importance of meting expectations.  By letting or students “off the hook” we are not helping them, we are continuing to fail them.