Why Is The Tardy Policy Too Harsh

Dear ,

I am writing to inform you that the tardy policy is way too harsh. The tardy policy is too harsh because it causes students to skip, it is enforced too harshly, and it exaggerates the time owed for the tardy. According to The New York Times, 15% of students chronologically skip school because they can't get to school on time. Keeping up with early start times is sometimes hard for students who live farther away or in heavily populated areas like Los Angeles. Students may get stuck in traffic or wake up late and end up skipping school because it is easier to clear an absence with a parent note to the office than it is to clear a tardy. To clear a tardy, you need to get to school before 8:10 with an excuse signed by your parent or guardian.

At Millikan, if you arrive after 8:10, you go straight to OCS and do not get to class and get an after school detention if you are late more than three times. Again I state the fact that according to deseretnews.com, Students who don't go to class, have a less likely chance of graduating high school because they don't get to learn. This is proof that it is too harsh because if we are sent away from class for an hour for missing 10 minutes we can't even learn, and end up getting make up work for that day which piles up. Now, we do tardy sweeps at Millikan and whomever gets caught will not go to class even if you are 30 seconds late. This is unfair because some people have a lot of make-up work with teachers across the campus. Sometimes you can't get all the way to the class on time because you stay after the bell to finish a few more sentences and end up being late. Some say that the tardy policy is a good way to keep students on a good consistent schedule so that it promotes punctuality. That is completely wrong. The tardy policy is just a way to control students. Sure it does keep students from doing stupid things outside of class during class hours, but just for 10 minutes of not being there should not give you the punishment of an hour detention after school. The main reason it is too harshly enforced is the fact that the tardy sweeps don't care where you are going, how far you were

Let's say you miss 5 minutes of class. It's not much time, but the tardy policy thinks otherwise. The average detention times range from 10 minutes, to 2 hours with an hour detention being typical according to k12engagement.unl.edu. This is all for missing just five minutes of class. This is unfair to the student because what usually happens during the first five minutes of the class is writing the agenda and homework for the night. The real teaching doesn't even start until 10 minutes into class. There should be a five minute cushion after the bell rings during the first class of the day that allows you to be five minutes late without an excuse at least five times because let's face it, life happens sometimes. When there is traffic on the 405 freeway, students can be a little late, so we punish them for something they can't control. That hour detention for the people who drive on the 405 freeway is not convenient because the longer you wait, the more traffic you will have to hit, which wastes more time. I believe that time is exaggerated because the five to ten minutes that you miss is not worth spending all that time in OCS. The more time you spend in OCS, the worse your grades get. I will state again that according to performwell.com, the students who are tardy and get sent to OCS often have statistically worse grades than other students who are not sent to OCS as often. This is because the