Last week, Verona High School’s new vice principal, Thomas Lancaster, sent an email reminding parents of the school’s tardiness rules. That resulted in a bit of grumbling–around town and on Facebook–that the policy was too harsh. But late arrivals at VHS are a bigger problem than many parents might realize.
According to the Board of Education at Monday night’s meeting, 46% of the 2015 seniors had more than 10 unexcused tardies in the 2014-2015 school year and 20% of those seniors had more than 25 tardies. One member of the class of 2015 had 100 unexcused tardies out of the 180 mandated school days.
It isn’t just “senioritis”. In the class of 2016, 43% had more than 10 tardies last year and 13% had more than 25. Among the class of 2017, 37% had more than 10 tardies and 9% had more than 25, while 24% of last year’s freshmen had more than 10 tardies and 10% had more than 25.
“It has become that much of a problem,” said BOE President John Quattrocchi.
The BOE stressed that these figures represented only unexcused tardies, not latenesses explained by a parent note or phone call. It also said that the note sent by Lancaster was largely not new policy, but rather an affirmation of what was already on the books. And while lateness may seem innocuous to the student running late, it has consequences.
“You’re talking about a lot of lost instructional time,” said VHS’s new principal, Josh Cogdill. “Students who are on time every day, they feel that their instructional time is compromised.”
And both Cogdill and the BOE stressed, in response to questions at the meeting by Kathleen Seubert, the parent of an incoming VHS student, that they were not talking about students who might be running late because of period zero band practice. “The goal is not to chase tuba players up the hill,” said Quattrocchi. “We’re talking about unexcused tardies.”
Under the tardiness policy, all VHS students are supposed to be in class at 7:55 a.m. A student who misses more than 15 minutes of class will be marked absent for that class and, as of September 11, will be subject to lunch detention. And then there are the repercussions that might jolt students more than lunch detention: seniors with 10 or more tardies will lose senior privileges, like out of school lunch; juniors with 10 or more tardies will lose senior privileges for 2016-2017.
As the meeting ended, Quattrocchi mused if the discussion would be the same if students were late for an extra-curricular instead of math. “We would not be that late,” he said, “for soccer or band.”
