Tardy sweep follow up: trends in attendance data remain inconclusive

November 13, 2017

_MG_1764 (1) — Dr. Kevin Astor directs tardy students into the MPR on the first day of the “tardy sweep” week. (F. Cervantes)

By SOOJUNG KI and ANIKET MEHROTRA
Staff Writers

The trend in attendance records remain inconclusive two weeks following the school-wide “tardy sweep,” which was implemented to address the growing issue of tardies on campus.
According to Mr. Kris Kough (Admin.), it is too early to determine whether the “tardy sweep” was effective in encouraging students to come to school on time.
“The effectiveness of it – time will tell – but if we’re trying to see a positive effect from data, just based on that one week Tardy Sweep, I don’t think that’s realistic,” Kough said. “When we get to that point when we can look at data over a period a time, then maybe we can see some trends.”
Although there was a relative increase of tardies on Thursdays and Fridays, the number of tardies showed a significant decrease in tardiness on Mondays through Wednesdays.
Despite the lack of correlation in data, the administration believes that the tardy sweep did achieve its purpose of getting a conversation started.
The important thing is we got the message out, and we started talking about it, and we created a platform to let kids know that we’re serious about getting to class on time,” Kough said.
The sweep was intended to promote punctuality in students by prohibiting students from attending their first period class if they arrived late, having them instead report to the Multi-Purpose Room for a meeting regarding attendance. Some students have proposed their own ideas on how they think the “tardy sweep” should be implemented.
“I think [the Tardy sweep] was a good idea, but it shouldn’t necessarily be for first period, but rather during fifth period, because then it’s the student’s responsibility to get to class on time,” said Arush Mehrotra (Fr.). “If you’re already at school then you’re controlling if you’re tardy or not.”
Students continue to express their opinions about the effectiveness of the “tardy sweep.”
“I think it [the tardy sweep] was completely useless, and it had no impact on anybody except for the five days that it was in presence,” Elias Nacady (Jr.) said.
The administration is planning on continuing the tardy sweep in some form throughout the year.
“We will look at … a random tardy sweep here and there, but it won’t be a weeklong thing, it’ll be a one day, one period thing,” Kough said. “We haven’t decided when we’ll do a random Tardy sweep, but we won’t announce it. It’ll be unannounced.”

tardy sweep follow up graph — The attendance data from the weeks preceding and following the tardy sweep do not reveal any concrete trends. (F. Cervantes)

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