ORANGE : School to Punish Tardy Students

A pilot program to punish tardy students at Orange High School was unanimously approved by the Orange Unified School District board this week.

Dubbed the “mother of all lockouts” by Orange High Principal Shirley Fox, the program will institute a policy of locking students out of the classroom after the tardy bell rings.

If the tardy plan is successful at Orange High this term, the school may ask to extend the program in May and the district’s three other high schools will be allowed to implement similar policies, said Roger Duthoy, assistant superintendent of secondary education.

A letter to parents announcing the plan was scheduled to go out this week.

Beginning Feb. 3, classroom doors will be locked to all latecomers. Students who are tardy must report to the school’s machine shop, spend the period doing homework and then attend their next class as scheduled. A student who is repeatedly late to class will receive detention, in-house suspension and eventually could be transferred out of the school.

“The staff at Orange High is concerned about the large number of students who are tardy to their classes,” the letter to parents states. “Students who enter class late not only interrupt instruction for their classmates, but also miss valuable instruction themselves.”

The school implemented the lockout program for its 2,175 students on a trial basis during two class periods for two weeks in December. Administrators found that tardy incidents during the trial dropped from 200 to 60 per period.