As the new 2024-2025 school year started every student was meant to attend a mandatory meeting in the auditorium. It was there that everyone from grades 9th through 12th was informed of the new policy change, stating that starting Sept. 5 first period tardies will now count towards one’s qualification for events such as International Days (I-days), prom, and homecoming.
Senior Sana Haidari commented on the new change and whether it was one that could ultimately benefit or hurt students. “Events like prom, I-Days, and homecoming should not be things we have to earn through first period tardies,” Haidari said. “People work incredibly hard to practice for I-days, some people have been looking forward to and preparing for prom since their freshman year and homecoming makes the highschool experience.”
Despite some criticism from members of the student body, Assistant Principal Joshua Dresser gave a key reason as to why this change occurred in the first place.
“What we saw was because we were not counting first period tardies in any of our thresholds we had about 11 to 12% of the school was late to school everyday or cut first everyday,” Dresser said. When taking into account that around 5000 students currently go to Lane, around 550 to 600 students were taking advantage of first period tardies not counting towards the qualification for school sanctioned events.
Alongside this, teachers themselves were giving their own concerns with the low attendance with their first period classes, according to Dresser.
Dresser continued mentioning that a lot of the courses at Lane are rigorous and difficult, which does not exclude first period classes. “They are saying we are having kids that are missing a ton of content, and so we have to do something about that from administrator’s side and we have to do something about that policy wise,” Dresser said.
However, previously only second to eighth period tardies were counted to make sure no students were punished for occurrences outside of their such as CTA. “The reason we did tardies for periods two to eight was because we knew that there could be problems with CTA and we didn’t want students to feel that if they were late at all to school that they would be excluded from events,” Dresser said.
Although the change was originally made due to the low attendance to first and high quantity of tardies, some students are still having trouble getting to school on time for reasons against their power. Senior Cayla Joshnson feels as if the tardy goals are still hard to reach. “I fear it’s a bit unattainable, mainly considering the bag checks and bus commutes. Like previously stated, the bag checks take forever and they only let you in at 7:55, and the buses are so inconsistent,” Johnson said.
The security lines have also received backlash from students as the lines often get so long to the point it flows over onto the lawn, specifically at doors A and D which often seem to get overcrowded. “Even if people get to school around 7:50-7:55 you can’t really even be on time considering the security lines, which is bogus as hell. Either don’t check people after 7:50-55 or give students some extra time to get to class,” Haidari said.
This issue was briefly addressed by Assistant Principal Sarah Hanly as she advised students in an email to get to school with more than 10 minutes to spare as the lines get long which may cause first period tardiness.
Although there is criticism regarding this change, there are ways to possibly make a plan to ensure one is still eligible for events despite not being able to meet every requirement. “There’s always special circumstances for a student so we don’t ever look at any student and just look at their numbers and just not talk to them,” Dresser said. “ It is incumbent upon the student to reach out early if they’re experiencing a barrier, which is why we do so much in the expectation meeting to try and communicate you must reach out, please reach out, don’t be afraid to reach out.”
