Tardies at Dana Hills are taken very seriously. You get one warning, and then a detention. The punishments become harsher each time. There is a definite emphasis on not being late, so should being punctual also have its benefits? The school clearly cares about late attendance, so they should have a system rewarding positive attendance. They could maybe have a week of positive attendance cancel out one day of negative attendance. Positive attendance should be expected, so it shouldn’t be rewarded too heavily, but since they care that much, why wouldn’t it be rewarded? This could also be extended over time to where if you are consistently on time for a month, then you can cancel out 4 tardies or 2 months and 8 tardies and so on. An alternative to awarding positive attendance is to just punish tardiness less harshly. 2 tardies and you already have a detention is too much, something like 4 or 5 tardies resulting in a detention makes more sense. Being punctual isn’t always in your control, sometimes there is traffic or maybe you had to take a dump before school. The tardy system as it is now is flawed and the solutions as suggested above could improve it.
Author: Rayan Darabi
