Students are recognizing that an adjustment to the tardy policy is more lenient than last school year.

  Changes to the policy include teachers tracking how many times a student is late to class and referring a student for discipline on the third tardy in each class each quarter. A student accumulating a third tardy in a class during the quarter will start at one day of after school or morning detention and punishment escalates from there. Last year’s policy required students to get a pass from the ISS room in order to come to class and tardies accumulated over all classes for the semester. A student who earned his third tardy would start at two days of after school detention with punishment escalating from there.

  The tardy policy this year has become much more lenient. A student can collect up to 14 tardies total in a single quarter and 28 tardies in total in a single semester without punishment. All tardies disappear when the next quarter begins. A student has the potential to collect up to 56 tardies altogether in a single school year. All information on the tardy policy can be found on page 21-22 in the Warsaw High 2018-19 Student Handbook.

  “I like the new tardy policy because it gives people less to worry about if they come in late because of traffic, or because they live on the other side of town,” senior Heather Weaver said. “If I’m late, it’s usually because of people driving slow on the road.”

  Not all students are affected by this change, however. Junior Aubri Umlauf has little experience with being late, but still believes the policy will have a positive impact.

  “I’m never tardy so it doesn’t affect me, but I do think the new policy will give us more leverage than last year. Sometimes you can’t help being late,” Umlauf said. “For people who do get a lot of tardies, a piece of advice is to not stop to talk in the hallways. It makes you and other people late. You can always see your friends later.”

  Freshman Jaidyn Estes believes that the new policy will leave room for student’s irresponsibly using their time.

  “I think it’s ridiculous to have so many tardies. I understand if there are emergencies and the tardy becomes necessary, but 14 in one semester is way too many and shows a high level of irresponsibility,” Estes said. “I’ve never gotten a tardy in my life, but I would urge other kids to be more responsible of your time, and do everything you can to not use them.”

  Another difference between the new and old policy is that the teachers mark students tardy instead of the students going to receive their tardy slip in the ISS room. Principal Danny Morrison said the reasoning for this change is so that students don’t have to waste valuable time in the classroom.

  “Students will spend more time learning the material than wasting time and walking back to the ISS room to get a tardy slip,” Morrison said

  Senior Chance Thirstrup agrees that students shouldn’t waste valuable class time going to get a tardy slip, and finds that this new policy will help teach him responsibility.

  “Compared to the old one I do like it better. It seems less controlled and more self-run by the teachers, and I appreciate that the school gave the teachers that option,” Thirstrup said. “It also helps take away from the time students would miss from class having to go and grab a tardy slip.”

  “I think it’s more lenient because you can get 14 tardies before any form of punishment happens, not that you should though,” business teacher Bethany Siegel said.