We had a staff meeting the other day regarding tardies in the classroom. Many students are tardy continuously to my 1st hour class. They all have passes from the office, but I don’t know what to do regarding them. Today I even saw one student in the lunch room eating breakfast, and then he showed up late with a pass from the office. So I knew he was here in time to eat breakfast but he still was late to class. I just don’t get how students think.
I understand if there ride is late, or had a doctor’s appointment. But I get the excuse that they had to walk to school (just leave earlier), or that they overslept (make sure a parent wakes them up). I am starting to get sick of the excuses.
I give out detention for the students who are tardy 3 times, but the problem is they don’t show up to detention. And as a teacher I don’t know if they showed up or not, so I start over on their 3 tardies once again.
There has to be a better system. Some teachers make the students stand for the remainder of the class period (or for a great length of it), and some assign detention with the teacher themselves. I have started to lock the door when the bell rings. So the student has to stay in the hallway till I am ready for them to come into the classroom. The main problem I have with this is that today alone I had 6 students tardy, and coming to class at all different times of the hour. There has to be a better system. Most of my classes are great, just my first hour has been puzzling me. Maybe it is because it is an Applied class, but then I feel sorry for the students who actually come to class on time and keep getting distracted and disrupted with the students coming in tardy.
Any ideas on how to fix / solve this problem?? Any insight would be greatly appreciated.
Oh tough situation Alison. I think that your policy of three tardies is reasonable. Maybe it can "reset at quarter time." However, I don't think that after they serve a detention they should have a clean slate. I also think it would be a good idea to have that student serve a detention with you.
ReplyDeleteI too have this situation with one of my first hour students....thankfully it is only 1 student and not 6. Here is how I responded.
Tardy more than three time. Really I'm flexible but once they rack up a pattern of being late (3-5) I assign a AM detention. This get's them here early and let's us discuss the problem. I use a written detention form. The form talks about our relationship, lists the problem, ties it to character education and then lists solutions. The solutions are what they can do, and how myself and their parents can help them. It also has a consequence if this issue (tardies) happens again.
This student and I went over the detention, she was good for a little bit....then she started to slip. I called her parent and the Mom said, "she needs an escalated consequence."We decided it would be 1 day of ISS. After all she had racked up 27 tardies! So she is in ISS this week and I'll let you know if this escalation of consequences helped. I can also send you that "think it over"form if you like.
Good luck! Remember you aren't alone in the "tardy" issue.
Alison, I am with you! I teach a PAWS biology class first period. I have a number of students who come late on a daily basis and many with unexcused absences (most often on Mondays). It definitely throws me for a loop. These are (typically) the students who are not getting very much support from home and have other "baggage" that they carry with them daily. Luckily, the PAWS program itself lends some reasons for the students to be coming to class. They can be removed from the program if it becomes a problem.
ReplyDeleteIf you have tried giving detentions, talking to them about the importance of being in class, and spoken with parents, then I would turn to the counselors for some help. Just make sure that you are documenting everything. Administration can also be supportive in a situation like this. There have been times that they have written attendance contracts with students.
Larissa, I think you made some really good suggestions. I still want to observe you some day and your awesome classroom management skills! I made it a personal goal of mine this year to have a clearer tardy policy in my classes (b/c I had a lot of students who had in the past always come late to my class). I did the 3 tardies equals a detention policy and made that very clear at the beginning of the year. I reminded students of the policy more often and always told them too when they were "one tardy" away from getting 3 tardy. Being more clear about my late policy definitely helped some, but I still get so frustrated when students are late!
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