For Tardy Students, a Wrong Answer
Locking students out of classrooms as a cure for tardiness (“School to Punish Tardy Students,” Jan. 18)? How desperate, how uninspired, how adversarial and punitive. Orange High School Principal Shirley Fox might have come up with a positive response to this problem if she had read “The Quality School--Managing Students Without Coercion” by educator William Glasser, MD.
If the classroom is promoting quality, students want to be there. If Orange High School classroom teachers made the first few minutes of class important and inspiring, students would be on time. Discipline, truancy and tardiness are non-issues in schools following the Quality School principles.
Locking students out will further their hostility and alienation and probably increase dropout rates. Shame on the Orange Unified School District board for allowing this coercive policy.
PAMELA S. OSBORN, Huntington Beach
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