First period tardies have skyrocketed with a 59% increase compared to the week of October 30, the week before Metea Valley administrators implemented first period tardy sweeps. Administrators implemented the new policy in order to decrease the number of students who were late to first period.

Teachers documented 414 first period tardies the week prior to the new policy. Despite the new procedure, in which teachers close and lock their doors when the first period bell rings, there were 660 first period tardies four weeks later.

Junior Judah Cloud believes that the new policy is excessive. 

“I think that when the teachers have the ability to send kids to the office to get a pass if they are consistently late it forces them to be more on time,” he said. “In my case just now, the bell rang at 7:24 and I got sent to the office right away, which I feel like is slightly extra.”

While there was a 2% decrease in tardies in the first week of the policy sweep, the following week of Nov. 6 saw an increase from 401 to 626 tardies. 

Students with a typically good attendance rate like Cloud are feeling the repercussions.

“In my case, it’s not a problem if I’m late once in a while for my record of attendance. But for some kids, it’s probably really annoying. For example, if there is an actual good reason these students don’t get a chance to have an exception.”

First period tardies in the past week have shown a slight decrease in terms of data. As the statistics documented noted 660 first period tardies during the week of Dec. 4; this past week of Dec. 11 recorded 584 first period tardies between Monday and Friday.

Senior Jack Dowal also has contrasting views on the new tardy policy. 

“This new tardy policy is not beneficial to students specifically as people are late all the time, especially in the morning,” said Dowal. “It just happened to me right now.”

For students who may experience occasional tardiness due to external issues such as a broken-down car, traffic, or weather conditions, students like Dowal and Cloud are forced to report to their house office in order to get into their first-period class.