Truancy tickets: students’ fees and tempers are rising

STUDENTS are fed up with the number of nes placed on them here at school. One of the new policies this year is the truancy ticket policy. If a student is more than ten minutes late, they are forced to go through the front doors where a few faculty mem- bers are waiting.

“Some kids have problems waking up or getting a ride to school,” Carlos Orozco (12) said. A lot of students don’t have access to a car of their own. They depend on their parents, so they usually have no control over when they get to school.

Also, on Mondays, school starts at 8:20 a.m. instead of 8:30 a.m. like in previous years. This can cause many complications.

tendance. “Mr. Anderson has the data that shows that attendance has risen, absences are only a third of what they were last year, at this point in time,” Mr. Jackson said.

Freshman and sophomores don’t get ticketed, they just get put in a room to do nothing dur- ing on-campus reassignment or OCR. They are not allowed to do homework, use their phones, or even talk. Most students believe that it’s a waste of their time. They believe that they should at least be able to do their home- work.

Administrators aren’t let- ting the students do anything in there so that the students don’t come late on purpose to work on homework. They want students to dread going into ISS (in school suspension), being too scared to be late at all.

These truancy tickets are con- nected with OCR, which has also

to administration- no matter how unfair it may seem.

“OCR has been doing well, I think that’s kinda helped. Wheth- er it’s just affecting the sopho- mores and freshman, but I think juniors and seniors have changed their attitude towards going to their classes,” Mr. Jackson said.

On the other hand, juniors and seniors have no reason to get too comfortable with being late to class. Administration plans on ex- panding the OCR system across all grade levels, replacing the tru- ancy tickets. “Our goal is, even- tually, that we’ll implement it on the juniors and seniors. It just de- pends on the time frame and how much manpower we have,” Mr. Jackson said.

There hasn’t been a set date to when OCR will start for the upperclassmen. In hope for the current and future Lancers, the overall message is this: just be on time.

Students may wake up some days and forget that school starts 10 minutes earlier. However, Grang- er allows students a 15 minute grace period before getting a ticket in the morning, in contrast to the usual ve minutes.

The administration will wait by the front door and take a stu- dent’s information, which results in a ticket. The ne is $3.00. This does not excuse your absence ei- ther- because if you are this late to class, you’re considered absent and will be charged $5 to your account. A lot of students have picked up the mentality that if they are too late, they might as well just stay home.

“I’m getting charged an extra $3, so I might as well just not go to class,” Leander Rodriguez (12) said. Although this is one student, it an example of the men- tality many students at Granger may have.

However, administration has con rmed that the truancy tick-

ets have improved student at- been very successful according