This year East High School has a Plasco Trac in the main building and Rapture system in the Walker building. The purpose of these systems is to scan student’s school identification cards when students arrive late for class. When a student is tardy, he/she will have their school identification scanned and the machine will print off a tardy slip. The tardy slip will display the time the student had their student identification card scanned and the amount of tardies the student has been issued. After four tardies, the system will automatically assign a lunch detention for the student. This system will also print out a temporary student identification card if a student’s card has been lost, stolen, or forgotten.
With this new system in place, teachers are no longer responsible for keeping track of tardies and assigning detentions because the system is now tracking this information. Although this new system has freed up time for teachers, it has caused problems. One of the problems it has caused is the fact many students are not serving their lunch detentions. Some students are not serving their lunch detentions because they have forgotten, while others are not serving it because they do not want to be compliant to the rule. As a result of this action, administrators are pulling students out of class and assigning them ISS during the day. For the most part, the students who are not serving their lunch detentions are also students who have poor attendance, grades, and behavior.
I understand the point administration is trying to make to students about being on time to class, but I do not think it is the answer. I do not understand how pulling a student out of class, when their attendance is probably poor in the first place, is going to teach the student a lesson about being on time. We have to think of a better method of getting students to be responsible for attending their classes on time and a proper punishment if they choose to not oblige by the rule.
Chris-
ReplyDeleteI have never heard of this technology, but am glad that you shared it in your blog. I am wondering how long this machine for tardies was studied before it was purchased and if the unintended consequences were analyzed? As we have learned in our Organizational Learning Systems, the key concept is to find out what the root cause of the tardies is and find the leverage point to make change/improvement. Make sure to collect data from the students themselves.