How do you feel about this New Tardy Policy? With the increased number of tardies, Lompoc High School has decided to be stricter with the punishments. The Tardy Policy used to be on the back of people’s minds but with the exponential growth of tardies the school has decided to increase the penalties and decrease the number of allowed tardies. The consensus seems to be universally negative towards it, but I would like to see how opinions differ between people.

When forming your view for the policy, first you should know the details of the change. The New Tardy Policy entails that the amount of tardies you accumulate, unexcused, lead to harsher punishments. These punishments include not being able to attend certain school events such games, prom, and, severely so, not being able to walk on stage during graduation. These new, harsher punishments seem to be controversial in the eyes of the students.

With the opinion of this policy being in question, it would be best to get an opinion from a regular attendee at schools events as the new policy could jeopardize attending these events. Juan Figuroa, a Senior at Lompoc High School, fits the bill. When asked about the change in Policy he offers to view the change from the schools perspective. He states “it’s necessary when looking from the school’s perspective to enforce this new policy in order to stop tardiness being so prominent.”  His view may differ from a lot of others but he believes, “only lazy students are mad at it.” and persists no added stress should come from the change as, he believes, students should always be on time.

The demographic that seems to be most affected are athletes at Lompoc High. Taking this in mind I asked Citaly, a member of the Girl’s flag Football team. I asked her, as a player, if the Policy had affected her at all. She responded no and that “it makes her feel more responsible, academically.” She continued that before the policy she didn’t really feel the need to go to class on time, as punishments were not very blatant or as extensive, but after she always arrived on time. This revelation makes her conclude that “the policy was a success in doing what it wanted.”.

The feeling towards this new policy, from the limited views I’ve heard, seems to be better than previously believed. With the New Policy looming over the students, those academically driven seem to be doing fine with it while those who aren’t, seem to be fighting against it. Some might say that the change was too hard but these same people seem to be the ones most needing the change. Now what do you think? Does the good outweigh the bad or do you think the school has finally gotten too authoritative with their rules?

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