It’s 8:15 on a typical Lakota West Monday morning. It’s five minutes after the bell. A line of students crowd the office as they get their tardy slip for the day. This is unusual. On the third week alone of school, there were 111 kids that have used up all of their tardy passes. This has the administration worried. 

In the last couple of years at West the student tardiness has increased at its highest rate. This isn’t just Lakota, other schools in the area have reported the same problem. Many speculate that the cause of this problem is due to COVID. For the past year and a half, students are used to lenient due dates for assignments. With many students getting quarantined, and the stress of the Pandemic, many teachers let their students cut some slack. As a result of this, Coach Bolden believes that “kids are greatly struggling with time management,” and teachers should be more strict on students turning in late work. The overall ability for students to manage their time and have responsibility has plummeted. 

This year, the Lakota Administration decided to push back the start time of school by an hour. However, this didn’t seem to lower the amount of students tardy. It doesn’t seem to matter how late school starts, if students can’t manage their time at 7am, then they won’t be able to manage it at a later time. 

The issue of tardiness is going to significantly affect students. When students eventually get jobs, they will be fired for not complying with their time schedule. Students should be getting into the habit of time management now while there’s only minimal punishment. Coach Bolden suggests that a solution to this problem is to get “more parents involved with a students schedule” as it will give students the extra push they need. Currently the punishment for being tarde over three times is to get a detention, but as of now this is not very effective.