Last month, lunch detentions were implemented at Hinsdale South. This is just one out of many actions that South has taken recently in the interest of safety and security in the building, with other measures including a K9 unit, metal detectors, and security guards in the hallways with information about all students currently scanned out of class.
For the most part, the other security measures have been received well by students. Most don’t mind having a dog in the building, and many, including myself, actually appreciate the presence of one. Additionally, the school has encouraged teachers to not mark students tardy in the case of them being delayed by the metal detectors to their first period class.
However, these new lunch detentions, affecting all students who had received any number of tardies during the year, are a completely different animal indeed.
Lasting for half of the lunch period, these detentions require students to appear in the little auditorium, serving one detention for each tardy. At the halfway point of the period, students are allowed to return to lunch as normal.
But having to serve one detention for each tardy? This seems like a little bit too much, especially when considering the fact that tardies are among the most minor infringements of the rules that a student can commit. This is still the case when comparing the tardies these detentions were designed for – those that involve students messing around in the hallways – and most tardies, which are usually accidental and involve students taking too long in the bathroom or forgetting something in their prior class.
Another frequent issue is when students show up on time to class but are delayed by stubborn ID scanners, placing tardies in their attendance that sometimes aren’t corrected, inflating the number of tardies and therefore making it seem that such detentions are necessary.
These detentions are also involved with the removal of last year’s grace period. Last year, there was a grace period of 5 minutes after the bell rang during which a student could scan into a class and avoid being marked tardy.
Unfortunately, many students seized this opportunity and took advantage of the extra few minutes of passing period time. In fact, I remember a class I had last year in which the same few students would consistently stroll into class two minutes after the bell rang after the teacher had already started the lesson, being sure to remain just within the grace period.
With this in mind, as well as South’s goal to maximize the time spent in the classroom, makes for a strong case to do something about tardiness and therefore would support more extreme measures to crack down on it, explaining why the grace period was removed this year.
However, implementing a system that punishes students with one detention for each tardy seems excessively harsh, especially when most tardies are accidental. But what else could work? South has already tried other strategies that offer rewards for doing well rather than punishment for doing wrong, such as hanging posters on the wall highlighting improved academic performance with increased attendance and even running a class war in the form of “No Tardy November” to offer rewards for being present.
Nevertheless, if the detentions still had to be implemented, then those strategies obviously didn’t work as well as was hoped. Fear, after all, is the emotion that humans respond to most, making it seem reasonable to create the fear of receiving a detention as an incentive to be on time.
However, I think South should not create such harsh punishments and instead should continue in their previous strategy of offering incentives for being present, like including a grade in Infinite Campus accumulated throughout the year for being there, with points subtly taken off for each tardy.
It is understandable that South is trying to make the school a better, safer place, which is something that we should all appreciate, but it seems that security might have been taken too far this time, overcompensating for last year’s mishaps and mostly accidental tardies that make it seem that such detentions are necessary.
Instead, South should not give up on the strategy of offering rewards for being present that has been used previously, and should explore new ways to offer such rewards to improve attendance.
