I'm curious what percentage of your population is late every day and how you deal with it. My school currently has at least 100 students come in late every day. Some days as high as 180. That's 10-20% of our student population every single day. These are students that range between five minutes late and half and hour late. How do you deal with this? Is that normal? Do I just have a different perspective now that I have parking lot duty and can see it happening? I know in a secondary school, the usual strategy is that three tardies makes an absence, but my principal says that this is illegal. Maybe she means at the elementary level? Either way, we need a way to get the students here on time. With so many late so often, it's become just another thing that we say, but can't enforce.
3 tardies = an absence is illegal here too. It sounds like you are at a huge elementary school! My kids' school was a school of choice. If you were tardy too many times you would lose your spot the next year. At another elementary school in town social services would be called after so many tardies. The children wouldn't be removed from their homes, of course, but a record would be started. No excuse for an elementary-aged child to be late repeatedly. If you can't get your kid to school on time, let them ride the bus.
We don't do the 3 tardies = absence here either. Our school starts at 8:15 but I'm not allowed to mark kids late until after 8:45. Mind you my first period of teaching also begins at 8:15 and I'm supposed to begin teaching at 8:15 (8:30 is the earliest I have ever managed to get my class in, settled and started.) But even if a kid walks in a full 30 minutes after the school day begins I can't mark them late. This is the way my school has fixed their lateness problem. It drives me absolutely insane!!! The same kids come in at 8:20, 8:30 daily. No matter how much I speak to their parents it doesn't change because there is absolutely no consequence for this. The only consequence is for me because it's completely distributive to the morning routine and any attempt to start teaching before 8:45. Yet my entire 90 minute math block is supposed to be covered by 9:45.
At my school three unexcused absences or tardies longer than 15 minutes (first 15 minutes is breakfast, so they don't miss much anyway) results in a note home, meeting requested with parents, and a file started. Six requires an official attendance plan which is more meetings and paperwork for parents. If they don't come in for the meetings the truancy offer goes to their house. It's somewhat effective because it makes things inconvenient for parents. It's hard in elementary because it's obviously not the kid's fault so it doesn't make sense to give them a consequence.
I see maybe 3-4 kids on the absentee as tardy each day. We have about 600 kids. We have a bigger problem with chronic absenteeism than tardiness. Every year I have kids who miss more than 40 days of school.
2-3 of my 15 students are late almost daily. One is a daycare van rider in the afternoon, but mom brings her in the mornings, so I don't see a real excuse. One is a bus rider who has to change buses 3 times, and whose bus is often late arriving at our school, so that one is excused. The third is a student who habitually refuses to get ready until she has missed her bus, forcing grandma to bring her to school late. I have contacted the parent/grandparent of the first and last students, and they tend to be more timely for a few days, then slack off again. My next step is to speak to my Principal about the situation.
I have 3 students come in 5-10 minutes late about 3 times a week. They've been flagged by our VP, who will be following up with the kids and their parents.
I'm not sure about in my whole school, but my Kindergarteners don't have tardy problems in my room. I maybe have 1 kid walk in 2-3 minutes after the bell once a week (if that). I think it helps that the students begin class with the bell and the first 10-15 minutes of class is where the students run the class. They love this.
I have a few students in my class who are regularly late. My school counts it as a quarter day absence. If they are late past a certain time, it is a half a day absence. I have one student who is either tardy or absent everyday. A note has been sent to the parent by the school, I have personally contacted the parent multiple times, and I have alerted the principal, so we are keeping an eye on the situation. Most of the excuses for being tardy just show that school isn't a priority. The dog got into the trash, they stayed up late, ran out of gas, something was forgotten at home, etc. I know things happen occasionally, but this is just irresponsible and the student's learning is truly suffering because of it. I doubt it will improve and social services will be contacted as the next step.
I had an almost straight A student last year in first grade who had over 30 unexcused absences and over 40 tardies, and he walked from ACROSS THE STREET. I talked to his mom multiple times, my P called her in for conferences, and the district truancy office sent their form letters, all to no avail. I considered calling CPS. My P had to sign a waiver for the kiddo (a great kid btw) to move to 2nd grade. The only excuse we were ever given was that his younger brother (then in K) didn't want to put his shoes on.
My school is about ~825 students with a goal of 864. It's a brand new K-5 charter school in its first year. We're currently renting a church, but our facility next year will be K-8 with ~1200 students. Since we're a charter, we have no bus system. It's mostly parent drop. Breakfast and transition from there have been planned out to where they don't take away from class time. Breakfast is from 7:15-7:40 and there's a transition time from 7:40-7:45 to get everyone from breakfast and the gym so that class can start at 7:45. Parents were given this schedule and told that drop off should happen between 7:15-7:40. Even still, there's literally 100+ kids that come in after 7:45 every day. While I'm not happy to see that our tardy numbers seem to be far higher than the norm, it's at least nice to know that we're not the only ones who can't get kids in the door on time since there's no consequence for being late.
