A Late Policy
At my school, student lateness is a problem.
Getting students to class on time is difficult. This could be for a number of different reasons:
- The school is big (3 floors, 2200 students, 24 portables). As you can imagine the hallways are very busy between classes.
- “Transition time” is not built into our schedule. Teachers generally permit 5 minutes for students to move between classes, but not all teachers are consistent.
- We do not have a school policy for lateness, so consequences vary from teacher to teacher.
I have struggled to develop a “lateness policy” for my classes over the years. I feel like I have tried everything: I’ve tried to guilt students into being on time, I’ve tried to have students fill out late slips or wait in the hall until I let them in, I’ve tried to give detentions, I’ve tried incentives, etc., etc.
Even if my strategies work for a short time, they eventually fail for one reason: they rely on ME being consistent. Whether I’m using incentives or punishments, I need to keep track of student lateness; If I’m using late slips, I need to remember to collect them and DO something with them; If I want students to wait in the hall, I need to remember to lock the door or turn over the “please wait in the hall” sign. Every consequence needs to be enforced by ME and unfortunately I am not organized enough for that! Eventually I forget to enforce the late policy, or I’m too busy (or excited) starting my lesson to notice late students, or I’m too tired to care. Slowly but surely, the “late policy” becomes a “late guideline” and then a “distant memory.”
I am thinking of a new approach that addresses the following pitfalls:
- I do not want to be responsible for tracking lateness
- The consequence for lateness should be immediate
- The consequence is not too severe but inconveniences students enough to want to change their behaviour (for most humans, inconvenience is the only way to get them to change.)
- Consequences are focussed on contributing or improving the classroom/school community, rather than being punitive to late students.
I have decided on the following policy:
I will wait at the door and greet all students for 5 minutes. If a students arrives at the door and I am not there to greet them, they know they are officially late. Before the student may enter the class, the student must find a piece of garbage in the hallways of the school and bring it back to dispose of it in the garbage receptacle in my classroom.
Not sure how well this will work, but it’s worth a try. Any comments or concerns I should be thinking about?
Photo Credit:
Running Late
Hey Paul
http://www.flickr.com/photos/heypaul/63101233/
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