In response to an increase in tardiness and truancy among Metea students, the administration is adding new policies for the upcoming school year to lower the rates of absent or late students overall.

This year, Metea is starting a brand new bathroom policy that will require a digital sign out process. Teachers can pull the data collected from the students when signing out, and can track data such as time out of the classroom, when the student leaves, and when the student returns. Staff will also have the ability to freeze when students can leave, or not let them leave at all.

“They’re going to have lanyards for each bathroom for students in the classroom, and then on their Chromebook or on their phone, they’re going to be able to request to go to the restroom,” Principal Dan Debruyker said.

In addition to the updated bathroom passes, the 5 and 10 minute freezes are remaining in place for the upcoming school year. The freezes are a time at the beginning and end of class where no students are allowed to leave the classroom, with or without passes. This is a protocol to ensure students are showing up and leaving class on time, and makes the students remaining in the hallway seem more out of place and noticeable by teachers. 

Science Teacher Albert Zika said, “Students are irritated when the bell rings and they’re not allowed to leave yet, right? So if your expectation of a teacher is to make sure that when the Class Bell ends, they’re dismissed, then the expectation is that you’re there on time to make sure that we’re taking full advantage of that class period.”

To combat the rising number of tardies over the 2024-25 school year, the administration also added tardy sweeps, which work in a similar way to late tickets, but apply to people being late to class in the school hallways. 

“We’d have students go to the house to check in, to kind of record that data, to see where we were.” Vice Principal Jones said, “[It] get kids that weren’t normally hustling the class, to kind of hustle into class a little more,”

These actions were sparked by a pattern of chronic absenteeism noticed in Metea, throughout the 2024-25 school year. The Illinois report card stated that 22.4% of students were reported as missing during 10% or more school days throughout the school year. The lack of time some students have spent in class poses the worry on how much information these students were truly retaining from their classes.

When looking at this issue long term, and the life skills that being on time provides, this becomes a larger problem long term. Zika said, “If you have an emergency, a car accident, you don’t want the ambulance to be 45 minutes late. You want it to be there right on time, right when you need it.”