EHHS administration and staff began a “Tardy Table” program before school in the middle of quarter one. Assistant Principal Mr. Anthony Russell stated, “The tardy table is our restorative way [to bring] awareness to students [who] are consistently late. Because in the end, what we’re trying to do is we’re trying to teach kids that being on time is important.” An average of 50 students are coming in late every day, with most of them being about 10-15 minutes late. The administrators’ goal with the tardy table is for students to start developing good habits that are transferable to the workforce or to college.
The tardy table is relatively new and administrators and staff are still trying to work out the kinks in the system. Although they have already changed up the protocol a few times, as of right now, this is how the tardy table works: A table is set up in front of the main doors, and about four staff members sit at it and stop the students who walk in late. These students must scan a QR code, which will bring them to a Google Form that they must fill out. This form asks them for their name and the reason why they were late. Then, a staff member will call the student’s name and hand them a tardy slip, which the student must hand to their teacher.
Students are having some mixed feelings about this new system.
While some feel that the tardy table is a reasonable way to get students to class on time, others feel that it makes them even more late to class. Some feel that it is just not reasonable. Sophomore Gabriella Dion said, “I hate it. They give me these stupid paper passes when I am one minute late. I think it’s too much and they need to get rid of it.”
Although students may feel that the tardy table is harsh, Mr. Russell explained that the administrators are trying to approach this idea in a more gentle way. He said, “We initially want to be restorative, and then if we have to go to that punitive disciplinary model, then we have to. But our main goal is to find out why we’re tardy and what we could do to change the habit.”
Two very popular reasons that students give for being late are “I woke up late.” and “I made it here on time, but the traffic at the bottom of the hill made me late.” Students strongly believe that arriving late due to the traffic at the bottom of the hill should be accepted as a valid reason. They get stuck at the light for minutes at a time and can not control the fact that it causes them to get to school late.
Mr. Russell explained that, “When a student comes in tardy and they come to class, it’s the professional responsibility of the teacher to put tardy in there. Then once they put that information into PowerSchool, we can run reports that give us who’s tardy, how many times they’re tardy, so on, and so forth. And with this one, we’re using a Google form that feeds into a Google sheet, so we have all the information right there, and we can see who’s consistently late.”
Whether or not students like the idea of the tardy table, they will walk right into it every time they come in late. As it is unavoidable, their best option is to accept that it will be there when they walk in after 7:25 and set their alarms for a little bit earlier.
