Recently, San Leandro High School has implemented new tardy policies that do not allow students to have more than five tardies in a week. If students exceed this amount, they are sent to detention. The administration’s rationale is that strong attendance leads to student success.
Complementing these tardy policies, San Leandro High also implements a new bathroom policy, which limits student leave to 10 minutes and is monitored by a service called Minga due to students leaving class for too long.
Students must arrive before the bell rings to avoid being marked late. If they exceed the time limit, they are subjected to mandatory detentions, which are held every Wednesday and Thursday after school for 30 minutes.
Some students may wonder whether being late to zero period affects their tardies.
“We are working with the teachers of those zero periods to decide what is fair,” Ann Albright, Assistant Principal said. “Detention will be held in classrooms based on availability and size.”
Some students believe that reintroducing detention is a bit extreme, but some teachers see benefits for students.
“Many students are not in class when they should be. The policy is for them. The fact is, some students need to know there are additional consequences,” said Ms. Stanley, a health and safety teacher at San Leandro High.
However, some teachers have a different perspective.
“The policy will encourage some students to put more effort into being on time, but the reality is that it won’t help all students,” said Mr. Fall, a Mandarin teacher at San Leandro High.
Students, meanwhile, expressed mixed feelings.
“I feel that the new policies are stupid, I keep getting tardy,” said Simon Cho, a junior. “I think they are extreme to the people who have good grades, but people who have [the worst] grades, I think they deserve it.”
The new bathroom policy also comes with a new classroom sign-out process using a software called Minga.
Minga tracks the time a student spends outside of the classroom, but it doesn’t track their location or require them to download an app on their phone. Teachers will log the time a student leaves, and campus security officers can approach students outside their classroom to ask for identification and inform them of their time limit.
“When kids go to the bathroom for a long time they are disrupting class flow and missing important information,” said Stanley.
Some students have thoughts on where school resources should be allocated instead.
“I think they should make it in twenty minutes,” said Kobe Zheng, a sophomore. “You know how many people are in bathrooms vaping, why don’t they fix that?”
