TARDINESS is one of the main concerns at Granger High School right now. Administrators have tried many things and are still figuring out what’s working and what’s not. This year, they’ve already tried switching to a single lunch for third-period tardies, and many students and staff seem to like this change. The latest change is digital passes and a new tardy rule, which has led to some confusion for everyone.

Administrators have been very strict on tardies this year. At the beginning of the second quarter, they cleared students’ absences and tardies for a fresh start, before announcing Granger’s new tardy rule. If students are more than three minutes late, a hall monitor will check them in, which starts a digital hall pass. Once they arrive in class, they must check in at a computer to end that digital hall pass.

Students receive a truancy ticket if they have too many tardies in a single class period or do not check in upon arrival. “I personally have already gotten a couple of truancies for being tardy, and it’s helped me stay on time more often, but I think about it as a 50/50 situation,” Abel Diaz (11) said.

One way administrators are trying to regulate absences is by charging fees. “I think the passes are not bad, especially when you’re late, but I think charging us $3 for being tardy is a little much. It does seem to be helping, though, because the halls do seem less empty,” Diaz said.

Mr. Bates is one of Granger’s administrators and manages the new hall pass system. Many students are confused about this new system and how everything works together. “The hall pass feature has been a part of our Focus system, which a lot of different schools have, and we wanted to try out here. There were a lot of teachers saying we have a lot of kids hanging out in the halls or not going to class on time or taking or many hall passes or just wandering around. We needed to find a solution,” Bates said.

It’s only been a couple of weeks since this change, but it seems to be improving Granger’s attendance problem very well so far. “It’s been helping a ton. The halls have been empty, classes are full, and kids are getting to class on time. Our goal here is for kids to graduate and do well in school. Students can’t do that if they’re not in class,” Bates said.

To address some students’ confusion, Mr. Bates wanted to clear everything up. “I know there are a lot of rumors that if I go past 10 minutes, I immediately get a truancy. It is a possibility, yes, but it’s not automatic,” he said.

Hallway monitors have really seen the effect of the digital passes, and whether they are beneficial and easier to use since they use the kiosk the most.

Hall monitors are mostly pleased with the results. “I like the digital passes because you can see how many minutes students use, and it’s reported in actual time. The digital passes are nice, but there are just a few hiccups still being managed. A con is that it’s hard to have to look up each student each time instead of just seeing their paper pass,” Michelle Petersen, a hall monitor, said.

With the old hall passes, students were familiar with them and the flexibility they offered, but that also meant many students took advantage of them. “With the paper passes, it was harder to find out if they really had a hall pass. I couldn’t tell how long they’ve been out or if the pass was accurate,” Petersen said.

Overall, the new hallway passes and tardy regulations have been a hit for the administration and have shown significant improvement to student behavior after a short time.