In previous years and continuing into the present school year tardies and absences have been a prominent issue amongst students, teachers, and staff. To combat that for this school year, administrators implemented a new attendance system. Since the enactment of these changes many students have sent complaints due to confusion with the new changes.
“You need five tardies to get a lunch detention, six to get a Saturday school,” said Assistant Principal Michael Rodriguez.
Rodriguez is in charge of attendance-related issues with help from other administrators and Student Services Office Assistant, Melissa Anderson. Along with the new system, the school introduced WestCo Crunch – a four-hour after school tutoring session expected to clear one Saturday school per day. Yet students have since reported that even after attending WestCo Crunch their attendance saw no change and they were still assigned to other disciplinary measures.
“I went to all of the WestCo Crunches available and I was still put on social restriction and it only took my mom’s complaining for them to do something about this, so I think it’s very unfair because why are they promoting an event to clear tardies if they’re not even gonna do that?” said junior Zoë Brink.
Other complaints come from students being unaware as to why they are assigned lunch detention or Saturday school, despite clearing their tardies. Students have even experienced only getting sent to Saturday school rather than lunch detention first.
“I got all my tardies cleared up from Saturday school and I was still getting assigned lunch detention when I was only tardy to my first period one time and I had to take the time to go to Student Services and clear it all up and it was a mistake on their part because I had tardies from the first grading period that they never cleared up,” said sophomore Vanessa Allen.
Allen also said that West Co Crunch was an effective solution, for her, to clear tardies and truancies. As the administration and the student body adjust to the new rules, it’s encouraged that students who have been assigned to attend either lunch detention, Saturday school or WestCo crunch use their time productively and make the most out of the opportunities given to make up for missing class time.
“There are 200 plus students so at some point it’s a one-on-one meeting to try and work with the student so it all depends on the student and the goal is to have the student complete the Saturday time,” said Principal Charles Park.
Park added that every student’s situation is different and the administration is working on it individually with students by either having meetings or calling families.
