Teaching Students to Punch a Clock

Re “A Later, Smarter Start,” editorial, Nov. 24: High school students don’t need a later starting time; they need an earlier bedtime. It was my experience when I taught that whenever school started later because of morning faculty meetings, even more students were late than usual. If school were to start at 10 a.m. or noon, chronically late students would still be late. If we’re preparing kids for the workplace, they need to practice now what we expect of them as adults. It would behoove the schools to apply consistent, meaningful consequences in order to teach personal responsibility.

I suggest the late students be dropped from a first-period class after a certain number of tardies. If and when the tardies continued to the next “first class of the day,” that class should be dropped also. Then the student would be choosing to lose credits needed for his or her graduation, which might mean a couple of years in adult school to get a diploma. We seem to lose sight of the fact that we’re not raising children -- we’re raising adults -- and adolescents are practicing now what they will become/are becoming.

In some schools, kids are hardly ever tardy. In others, close to half of the student body is late. Let’s address that problem instead.

Doreen Lorand

Downey