Schools
New ID Policy at Nicolet Nearly Eliminates Tardiness
Students say they don't mind because if you're on time, there's nothing to worry about.
The tardy bell at rings each school morning at 7:23 a.m. Thanks to new technology, administrators this year have a new and more efficient way to deal with students who arrive late.
“Rather than having a back log of kids at the front door, filling out tardy slips, there’s technology out there - since they have barcodes on their ID cards - they scan their ID cards,” Superintendent Rick Monroe said.
The new policy mandates that tardy students show and scan their school ID cards upon entering the front door of the school, which creates an electronic record of the when the student arrives on campus. The computerized system also keeps track of how many tardies the student has for the year. Administrators have also put new disciplinary rules in place for students who are repeat offenders.
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School officials say the number of tardies at the school are down and teachers are noticing. Several first period teachers have already mentioned to Monroe that student tardiness is almost non-existent in their classes this year, which wasn’t always the case.
“I’m not too upset about it,” says another Nicolet senior, Daniel Isaacson. “Just come to school on time with your ID, it’s not that difficult,” he adds.
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Part of the new policy also addresses those students who show up late to school with no school ID. Parents receive a warning for the student's first offense. A second offense requires the parents be contacted directly and the student to immediately get a new ID for $5. For a third offense, parents are contacted, the student gets an after school detention and a charge of $5 for a new ID.
“What we want to have is progressive consequences. A student who is tardy once, we will talk to, there won’t be heavy consequences,” Monroe said. “But if a student scans his ID and it comes up that the student has been late 12 times in the last 20 days, we have an issue."
Kelly DeJonge has been the school resource officer for four years and is a Nicolet alumni. She said she sees the new ID policy as a learning process and thinks it's "a good idea for tracking purposes."
Most students, including Nicolet senior Nick Harris, don't seem to mind the new policy either. “The policy's not a big deal at all to students who show up at school on time, which is the majority of students."
