A tardy in school is when a student arrives to a class after the start of it. In many schools a bell or sound is played over the school intercom system when the class is supposed to start. Students that arrive after the bell/sound are considered tardy to class. The teacher will mark the student tardy or follow up with the student according to school expectations.
In my classroom I shut the door (and lock it) as soon as the class starts and any student that comes to the door after the start of class is marked tardy.
Does Being Tardy Impact Your Grade?
Not directly.
What I mean is a tardy will not change your overall classroom grade from let’s say a B to a C.
Grades are meant to assess student mastery of learning standards via summative assessments, not the students ability to be on time.
Being tardy to class can impact learning though.
If a student is tardy to class they can miss important instruction that will eventually catch up with the student and could impact their learning because they are missing instruction.
As a teacher it is super annoying when a student arrives tardy to class and says, “What are we doing?” right after the teacher finishes giving directions.
Now the teacher has to once again try to explain to the student what they missed.
What Happens If You Are Tardy Too Much?
If you are tardy too much you may receive a detention before or after school or during lunch.
The school district that I work for gives students a lunch detention for too many.
Lunch detentions are detentions where the student is not allowed to eat lunch with the other students and instead has to report to a lunch detention room or the main office.
I tell you all about lunch detentions in this article.
If the student still continues to be tardy to class then Saturday school detentions are the next option.
Those are the worst, they are detentions that take place Saturday morning.
Allen is an 8th grade teacher in a public school in a Chicago suburb.