The administration introduced a new tardy policy via email on Feb. 16. The new policy enforces tardies more by giving lunch detention to students who exceed more than five tardies in a grading period.

This new policy does not take students’ personal lives or mental wellbeing into accountability and, if anything, encourages skipping.

This new policy does not factor in students’ home lives, students who get rides to school often have little to no control over timing, even if they are ready their guardian or whoever is providing them a ride may not be. Other than that, Austin traffic is highly unpredictable especially with ongoing construction which can make arrival time vary heavily. All of these factors affect attendance and this new policy punishes kids for factors most don’t have control of or other people’s shortcomings.

Using lunch against students is not an appropriate approach for minimizing tardiness, lunch provides a very important break for students to fuel them so they can thrive. According to a study by Northern Illinois University, when students are studying for hours on end, a break where you nourish your body and mind will help you be more productive when you return to your work. These breaks are so important for the productivity of a student and taking them away can hinder their productivity.

The consequences of being tardy are more enforced and intense than the consequences of skipping class or not showing up all together. Instead of being tardy a couple times and getting punished, it is more appealing to just skip class altogether because that would receive a less impactive punishment than repeated tardiness. If a student were to skip class five times they would risk Saturday school but only if all the absences are in the same class, whereas if a student is tardy five times in any class, they get lunch detention and one absence on top of that. This does not do anything positive for the attendance and may, in fact, worsen it.

The school focuses on giving students punishments for their actions when they could have better results by giving positive reinforcement instead. There are so many ways to recognize students who get to class on time and thank them such as awards, homework passes or even just a thank you email. By doing this, it could influence students both in the short term, and the long term—to where in the future they won’t need a thank you, but will know what to do and why it is right.