In the last few weeks students, especially freshman, have been abuzz about tardy sweeps. There is a ritual, when Mr. Mackenzie calls on the intercom to be on time for class, all students rush to their next hour to not get caught. Tardy Sweeps in their current form do not work as intended.
Tardy sweeps are meant to catch and punish students who are late for class, and, “encourage students to get to class on time,” Mr.Vukich, History Teacher said. The way they are done doesn’t accomplish this, announcing that there will be a sweep completely defeats the purpose of doing them. How can the administration think that students will learn to be punctual all the time, when it only really matters when there is an announcement? What are tardy sweeps are teaching kids, “You should listen to the announcements,” Vukich replied. That says a lot, a teacher in the school doesn’t think tardy sweeps teach the lesson that they should.
Now let’s talk about the punishment for sweeps, you get a detention. That is perfectly acceptable to me. If you’re late, especially when it is so blatantly announced, you should be getting a detention to teach you to be on time. Although I feel that the punishment for a tardy when you’re not in a sweep is too minimal, “A slap on the wrist,” is what Gabe Hoffer ’16 said. Where is the lesson in that? When students are tardy they should be getting some punishment, and I know some teachers do have discipline for being late and this is good, but all teachers should implement some, otherwise most of a student’s tardies don’t matter, and do not teach a lesson.
Tardy sweeps do nothing for the school except for cause a mad rush. Tardy sweeps are meant to help teach kids and simply aren’t doing so. They are hurting us more than they help. In college, some professors won’t even let students enter the room tardy. If students think they can be late anytime, unless someone says something just before, a lot of Tower students won’t be attending their classes in college very often.
There are ways that I can think of to make tardy sweeps effective. One of which is simply making them random, as well as every day, if all students know that at any point they can be caught in a sweep without warning, they’ll also be on time. Another solution, which I believe will be much less popular is to make every tardy punishable by detention, then students won’t be late because they know if they are then they will be punished. There is no point in doing tardy sweeps if everyone knows it’s coming, and I really think things need to be changed. I hope that Mr. Mackenzie will read this and make a change to how tardy sweeps are implemented to make them more effective.
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