Remember the white rabbit in Alice in Wonderlandfi “I’m late, I’m late, for a very important date.” What adult hasn’t felt a little (a lotfi) of that pressure themselves as urgent time commitments take over our lives. Entire courses have been invented to teach time management strategies to those who suffer from the syndrome. And yet, we still don’t manage our time as well as we should and find ourselves running late to all sorts of important dates.

As I read an article in our morning paper about yet another tardy policy being tried at the high school in a neighboring community, I thought back over my own 27 years of teaching and the tardy policies that have come and gone. Have any of them really been effective at stopping students from coming to school or class latefi The resounding answer is NO!

We’ve have three different policies in the last two years at our school, and the same five students who were tardy to my class last year are tardy again this year. Yet we hire more attendance secretaries, purchase more computer programs to call parents, and create a paperwork trail that would destroy a small forest to track students who are habitually late.

A search of the internet shows that tardiness is prevalent at public schools across the country and that lockouts, parent contacts, detentions, Saturday school, school suspensions, community service, andmeetings with principals or truancy officers are the norm for dealing with this problem. But what effect does all of this tracking have in the real worldfi

I could not locate a single high school that denied graduation to students who were habitually tardy, nor could locate a single college or university who even had a tardy policy. Some businesses might penalize employees who are habitually late, but even bosses seem unable to do anything about it. According to Nic Paton at Management-Issues.com, “Employee lateness is a serious cause of irritation for nearly nine out of 10 employers, . . . but fewer than a third of bosses monitor lateness, while just 29 per cent had plans in place to start tracking punctuality.”

So, instead of schools spending all this time and money tracking students who are late, maybe administrators should take a step back and look at why the problem exists. Dr Phil McGraw discusses in his book Life Strategies (Free Press) that people do what works. Payoffs for tardiness might be sleeping later, more time with friends, walking through less crowed hallways, or time to go to the restroom. If schools could allow for these same payoffs other than students being tardy, then they might be able to effect change. Punitive disciplinary action doesn’t solve the problem.

Tardiness is a direct result of being over-scheduled. Students are not the only ones who run late for school. If you don’t believe it, park outside any school in the country and see how many teachers and administrators pull into the parking lot seconds before the final bell.

In Business with Mallory by Laurie Friedman (Carolrhoda Books, Inc.) When Mallory and her best friend, Mary Ann, see the perfect purse advertized on television, the girls decide they both have to buy one so they can match outfits. Mary Ann gets her purse right away, but Mallory has a problem–the purse is expensive and her mother says no. Mallory tries holding a parent conference, asking her grandmother for money, and selling her joke book collection, but nothing nets her enough to buy the purse. On an overnight visit, Mary Ann suggests they open a beauty salon to raise money. Everything goes great and Mallory earns just enough to buy the purse; however, her mother reminds her she needs to buy a birthday present for her brother. What will Mallory dofi Aimed toward an upper elementary audience, this story encourages girls to look at the long-term values of friendship and family relationships, rather than the momentary pleasure commercial purchases bring.

Lu Ann Brobst Staheli is a Christa McAulliffe Fellow, 2005 Nebo Reading Teacher of the Year, and previous Utah English Language Arts Teacher of the

This story appeared in Spanish Fork Press on page A2.

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