Action research plan under way.....

I have interviewed teachers to identify areas that they feel could be improved upon in regard to our tardy policy or the enforcement of the policy. I received good feedback from my teaching colleagues, and was able to identify 3 areas they felt were the cause of the large number of tardies we have had the last couple of years. Some felt teachers were not consistent in their enforcement, so they students felt like they could “get away with being tardy” with only sporadic consequences. To address this, I let the teachers and administrators know this was an area of concern for the faculty as a group. The second area of concern for teachers is that some of our student are brought to school by their parents and the parents are the cause of the tardiness. I have addressed this to a small degree when visiting with students about tardiness. I will explain this a little later. The third area of concern for teachers was that our lunch detention was not an effective method of deterring students from being tardy. The lunch detention was very disorganized and by the time students got their food from the cafeteria, and got to the detention room, they had about 15-20 minutes left in their lunch period. Again, teachers felt the students had the idea that the punishment was “worth it”, and they were therefore willing to be tardy in exchange for this punishment.

After getting input from my own colleagues, I researched what some schools in the area do to curb tardiness, and also looked at some schools in other areas of the state, and how they address the problem. Most of the schools I researched had a policy that was similar to ours. After a certain number of tardies, the students were assigned lunch detention, after school or before school detention, or were assigned a day of in school suspension. Some of the schools left the enforcement of tardies to individual teachers. Most had a system of tabulating tardies through the attendance office and had the principal deal with the students who accumulated too many.

I visited with my principal and AP and we kept our basic tardy policy in place. The changes we made were to the enforcement of the consequences. I am now checking tardies from a print out I receive from the attendance clerk. I then assign the appropriate punishment in accordance with our tardy policy. I am also taking the lead in the lunch detention punishment so that it is more organized, and not a social time for the students in the room. I get the students through the lunch line quickly and take them to the detention room so that they have 25 minutes of their 30 minute lunch in the detention room. There is no talking or socializing during this time. Students are not allowed to have electronic devices during this time either.

As of today – the end of our 5^th week of school, we have had 6 students who have received lunch detention out of 316 students. Three of the students received their detention after week 3 and the other three after week 4. None of the students who have received a lunch detention have had a subsequent tardy. I have visited with each student to determine the reason for their tardiness. Three of the six indicated that they were brought to school by their parents and had no control over the tardiness. All three indicated that they had younger siblings who had to be dropped off at their campus prior to them getting to the high school campus. I challenged them to develop a plan with their parents to keep from having any more tardy issues. In following up with these students, all 3 told me they had talked with their parents and that they would now be dropped off at the high school before they younger siblings were dropped off at the elementary or middle school. The other 3 students just said they don’t get up on time. I challenged them to set their alarm 10 minutes earlier and to get up when it went off. Again, as of today none have accumulated any additional tardies.

At this point I am pleased with the results we are seeing with our new consequences in place. I know it is early, and that nothing can be drawn from this data yet. However, I have informed each student who has had a lunch detention that the next step is after school detention, and that this would be strictly enforced. I am hopeful that there will be a minimal number of students who are assigned the after school detention. I am hopeful of this partly because it will indicate that the consequences are deterring the tardiness, and partly because I am the one who will be monitoring their hour long detention after school!

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.