With the start of the new marking period, River Dell’s administration has decided to make amendments to the late policy. On February 27th, the assistant principal, Mr. Flanagan, announced that there would be changes made to the rules regarding tardies and detention.
Originally, students were required to go to one detention session per five tardies. Also, “anybody who had more than 20 [tardies], came to [the] Saturday [detention session] two weeks ago,” explained Mr. Flanagan.
Flanagan also shared that with the old late policy the faculty has seen tremendous improvement in student attendance, saying that “compared numbers from this year to the last two years, and students are doing a much better job” coming to school on time. The policy has “really has cut back a lot on tardies,” he explained.
Despite this improvement, he expressed that he thought the old late policy was “a little inconsistent.”
This is because the number of “lates” that a student received did not “restart” with each new marking period. For example, if a student did not take their attendance seriously and received four tardies in the first marking period, but significantly improved over the next quarter, they would still be close to receiving detention because they still had those tardies hanging over their head.
Essentially, the old late policy did not account for improvement and students making changes to their behavior.
In a separate assembly on February 7, 2025, with the seniors, Mr. Pepe also shared the new tardy policy. He reiterated the importance of staying in Sub Hall and that administration are trying to “ease up on the seniors” in the fourth marking period, so to just “hang tight”.
Mr. Flanagan reminded students that if juniors are taking senior parking spaces, to let him know, and that seniors should not be parking in the teacher parking lot.
Also at the senior only meeting was Mrs. Arlack, the senior class advisor. She discussed upcoming events for seniors, like an attempt to create a dodgeball competition between the students and teachers. There is also work in progress on a field trip later this year, and she is trying to create fundraisers for prom tickets, so that students can get tickets for free, reduced, etc.
Reese Hornidge, a sophomore here at River Dell, explained that she “Feel[s] like [the tardies] kept racking up, and they didn’t go anywhere; they stayed with [her].”
The administration started to receive, “feedback,” shared Flanagan, that suggested making changes to the late policy. The new policy will now provide a fresh start to student attendance.
Instead of five, students will receive detention about every four tardies acquired.
“We made it three, seven, twelve instead of five, ten, fifteen,” said Flanagan.
At the same time, there are still rules and regulations to keep students responsible for their attendance and to make sure that they are taking their education seriously.
“It’s still holding students accountable for being here on time,” said Flanagan. “There’s still a number attached to it.”
However, if students have pending detention sessions from the previous marking period that they have not attended, they are still obligated to fulfill their requirements.
“You are still responsible for [previous detentions] that you did not attend,” said Flanagan. Even though it is still new, students and administrators are optimistic about what the future will look like with this new policy. “It’s better for the students,” shared Mr. Flanagan.
