Researching my plan

My first step in my action research plan was to gather information from our high school faculty to ascertain what they feel the area(s) of need are in within our tardy policy at the high school. From these surveys and interviews, I determined that the teachers had 3 areas of concern. Those areas were:

1. Teachers are not consistent in assessing tardiness. Some count a student tardy if they are a second late. Other teachers give a little leniency for students getting to class. Still others do not count students tardy at all.

2. Many of the instances of tardiness occur first period and are not the fault of the student. Parents bring their children to school and the students can't help it when the parents are late in doing this.

3. Our current punishment of lunch detention is not a deterrent to being tardy. Our lunch is 30 minutes in length and by the time the student gets their lunch and reports to detention, they have about 20 minutes which is spent eating, and visiting with other students who are in the lunch detention room, which is the same thing they would be doing if they were in the cafeteria for lunch.

Based on this information, and in visiting with the assistant principal who enforces the tardy policy, and with his encouragement and blessing, I have decided to address item # 3 above. I will begin researching other alternatives to this lunch detention policy and come up with a plan to present to my assistant principal

** Adding to all of the fun of the first 2 weeks of school, our bell system has been (and still currently is) not operational. It has been "worked on" by the company that installed it, but as of today we have no bells or announcements, and students are only too eager to use the "I didn't know what time it was, since there was no bell" excuse. This has added to the issue of whether to count a student tardy or not, and the consistency with which it is being done.