As the school years winds down, students are starting to lose their motivation to come to school. Administration is starting to see an increasing amount of students coming in late, or not coming to school at all. In a survey of 100 students, students reported tardies ranging anywhere from no tardies for the whole year to 33 tardies, with the majority of these tardies being from first block. Their reasoning behind their absence was typically because they are eager for Summer to start or just because they feel like school is not worth coming for.
Two years ago, Buffalo High School went through a change that they thought was best for students. They pushed the start time of school an hour back. Although this caused a big controversy at first, the school had good reasoning. The reasoning behind pushing back the school time, is that it would help the students’ brains be more active, and it was more healthy for their bodies; but what does this mean for their attendance?
Parking Lot Attendant Aaron Starry usually checks in students late in the morning.
“At the begging of the year, it’s not too bad, and at the middle of the year it gets bad, really bad,” said Starry. “It gets better towards the end of the year because seniors are trying to get their senior privileges.”
Since the change in start time, Starry said, “It’s gotten better, there’s still a lot to improve on, but it has gotten better.”
Principal Mark Mischke explained that, since the time change, tardies have gone down by 17%
If the later start isn’t the main problem, then maybe it’s the student mentality.
“There are more important things to be done,”
said Senior Carley Zumbusch. “I need more time in my day than school allows me to have to get free time.” Zumbusch accrued 112 periods missed total and 8 tardies. “When I’m tardy, it is typically because I sleep in, but sometimes I have appointments… on a very rare occasion.”
Stepping it up a little, Senior Ryan Armstrong, had a total of 225 total missed periods this school year. Rather than needing more time for other things, Armstrong said, “Usually it’s because I don’t want to do something in the class. For example in first or second block I would skip because I don’t want to take a test.” He also explains ” I just don’t think I need to come in everyday when I could be sleeping. It’s not that important.”
Armstrong also pointed out that he was not able to get his senior pass due to his tardies and missed periods.
Although students are missing a lot of school, does it mean that their grades are dropping?
“I personally do not believe attendance has any correlation to grades as I have missed half of this quarters class periods and I’m standing with my lowest grade percentage at 96%” Carley Zumbush says.
It’s hard to tell whether other students agree or not. In a survey conducted with 100 students, 53% of respondents said it has no correlation and the other 47% said it did, when they were asked if attendance correlated to GPA.
