Lately, Sachse High School staff and administration have been implementing many new policies and procedures for tardy students and students who not getting to school and classes on time

Many of these rules affect students’ academic performance, and many students and even staff are against these new procedures. However, Principal Creel was interviewed, and gave us many reasons why these new policies are beneficial and 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. But before this policy was implemented, Mr. Creel told us that there were “85-100” people tardy during the 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.

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.

But don’t abuse this right, as faculty also pay attention and know who repeat offenders are.

Also, the new ID policy. 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, 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 ID’s more, which is good for the safety of the school.

However, as helpful as these policies may be for staff, 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 left to get to 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 staff member, they told me their thoughts on the policies, but 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 staff 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 (his office), we take that to department chairs and get feedback from them. 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.” he said,

“They get our input on what we think would be best for the school, but ultimately they make the decision and tell us how to implement it,” they said.

But you also have to consider other staff that you wouldn’t think would be affected by these policies, but are. Counselors and coaches for example. 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.

We in Sachse Journalism are against these procedures and rules, and think they are unfair to some students 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 Creel!!), and then if they aren’t in class by that time we can enforce the tardy policy as it is.