Lately, Sachse High School staff and administration have been implementing many new policies and procedures that focus on students who not getting to school and classes on time – usually referred to as the “Tardy Party.”
Many of these rules affect students’ academic performance, and many students and even some faculty are against these new procedures. However, Principal Creel was interviewed, and gave us many reasons why these new policies are beneficial to the students’ current and future performances and lead to improving the school.
As we know, students are now being sent to the Annex when they are tardy, and too many tardies in a day will lead to an immediate consequence of going to ISS. But before this policy was implemented, Mr. Creel that there were “85-100” people tardy during first period alone – and this year it has been down to 20 and even the single digits after first period.
He told us that this new policy has shown improvement and the amount of people who are late has significantly decreased – and even those who are tardy to second period and beyond has drastically went down.
Also, these policies are not meant to punish students, rather they are consequences for those “who don’t take school as seriously as others.”
Mr. Creel is willing to be flexible when tardies are out of students control. For example, when the weather is not ideal, he takes that into thought and waves tardies for a few minutes to allow students more time to get to class.
Also, if a student has car trouble or their parents are the reason they are late, a student is allowed to tell their AP about it and their AP decides if they are allowed to get to class – those can could be considered to waive a student from going to the Annex. But every incident is considered on a case-by-case basis. But don’t abuse this right, as faculty also pay attention and know who repeat offenders are.
The tardy policy are not the only new things changed, also the new ID policy has gotten a new addition. When a student does not have their ID and Trust Card, instead of simply buying a new one like they used to, students are now forced to wait at the front of the school at the beginning of school, scan a QR code, and wait for someone to bring them a new one.
Mr. Creel told us that this new policy has actually decreased tardies as well, and students have been wearing this IDs more, which is good for the safety of the school. He did add that he hasn’t seen a significant connection to students getting IDs and being tardy because of it – that the line goes fairly quickly.
However, as helpful as these policies may be for faculty and the APs, we also have to think about how they affect students.
The tardy policy, for example, can negatively affect students’ grades. Many teachers take a more old-fashioned approach to their teaching and instead of posting their assignments in Canvas, they use papers. But when a student isn’t in the classroom, how are they supposed to get their papers and do their assignments? This is a concern for students. This makes the responsibility of getting the work on the students, which, Mr. Creel also said, is a real-world skill of taking responsibility and being on time for classes.
The new ID policy could also negatively affect students. If a student shows up with only a few minutes before first period class, and realizes that they forgot their ID, they now have to wait and go through the process of getting their new ID before being allowed to go to class. This can cause a student to be late, and send them to the Annex, which, as stated, can cause them to get behind on work.
I also interviewed a faculty member on their thoughts of the new policies who wanted to remain anonymous.
“The tardy policy was put in place for a reason, and it has both good things and bad things about it just like any other policy,” they said.
The faculty member also told me about the process of a new policy being implemented, which Mr. Creel further clarified the process.
“It’s not really a vote. But I also don’t run a dictatorship. So what I do is I present an idea or my leadership team presents an idea to me… all ideas are cussed and discussed in here (in his office), we take that to department chairs and get feedback from them,” Mr. Creel said. He continued, “If I’m met with a lot of resistance, then I bring it back and say ‘this is what’s going on’, we try to say ‘can we change this?’ If so we take it back to department chairs, if they’re in a good place I ask them to get feedback from their departments (staff), and then we go from there.”
But you also have to consider other faculty that you wouldn’t think would be affected by these policies, but are. Counselors and coaches for example can be greatly affected. Counselors do much more than just listen to student’s issues and change their schedules, they also have to monitor students behaviors and habits. So if a student makes it a habit to be late and miss class, their counselors have to speak with them about it to see what’s going on.
Also coaches are affected, because if a student is late or absent too many times, it affects their eligibility and could put them in a position where they are unable to play in games. This puts the coaches in a tough position, because they have to find a new player to take on their roles and also punish them for “not taking school seriously.” Even if they do take school and classes seriously, they are just often late and forced to miss entire class periods as a result.
These policies were implemented for the students – not for punishment but for corrective nature and consequences. Mr. Creel points out that after high school, college and jobs have standards for bein being on time and wearing ID, so the policies are really to help students form habits they can carry into the future.
Over all, we are still not excited about these procedures and rules, and think they are unfair to some students, especially those who cannot control when they get to school. However, we know that these policies do more good than harm, so we found a way to improve it without changing it. Giving students a 5 minute grace period – which we did discuss with Mr. Creel – in the beginning of first period, and then if they aren’t in class by that time we can enforce the tardy policy as it is.