Tardy Policy Unpopular, But School Officials Call it Effective

’s stricter tardy policy and some students’ negative reaction to it have raised concerns among some parents and students. But one woman is taking steps to resolve the situation in a positive way.

Anita Norman, mother of a Campbell High School junior, has organized a meeting for parents and students Friday, March 9 at at 7 p.m. Norman said she organized the meeting because the issue impacts the entire community.

“The purpose of this meeting is just to come together to brainstorm ideas for how we might can help, and to let the administration know that we're interested enough to get involved,” she said.

“There may not be anything we can do. It depends on what Campbell administrators want to do. It depends on if Cobb County gets involved at the district level, superintendent level. But hopefully if we can just get some ideas together and come up with a plan to present our ideas and walk that fine line between wanting to be supportive of leadership and also wanting to make it a better place.”

According to the Cobb County School District, Campbell began cracking down on student tardiness on March 1 by implementing hall sweeps. Students who are not in their classrooms when the bell rings are rounded up by administrators and ordered to attend Saturday school, a punishment that requires students to spend Saturday from 8 a.m. to noon in the cafeteria. on March 2 by starting a food fight and pulling two fire alarms.

“Many Campbell students were disregarding the school's standards, averaging 400 individual tardies per week across all grade levels,” said Doug Goodwin, a Cobb County School District spokesman. “This is incredibly disruptive to the instructional process.”

Norman said she has no problem with the administration trying to get students to class on time, but rather how they have chosen to enforce the stricter tardy policy.

“We just need to find out more about it and see what we can do to help build the relationships between administration, teachers and students so we can get back on track to the way it was two, three years ago. That’s my goal.”

Parents received word of the hall sweeps from the school district’s automated calling system the week of February 27. Students learned about the policy on the school’s morning announcements and via the Campbell High School webpage, Goodwin said. 

Although these steps were taken to inform parents and students some may not have received the message. Campbell Principal Denise Magee reported to the district office that she received six calls from parents about the enforcement of the attendance policy.

Norman said she thought that the stricter tardy policy meant students had five minutes to get to class when they originally had seven.

Though no Campbell students would go on the record, citing a fear of punishment from the school’s administration, several left comments on Smyrna-Vinings Patch saying five minutes wasn’t enough time to get to class.

“I have a class across the campus and I have to get to my next class that's extremely far,” said “Lizzie” in a comment on the site. “I barely make it in time. I don’t stop and socialize. Now with the change, I literally have to run and push people out of the way.”

"Child of God" said allowing five minutes to get to class was unreasonable.

"I approve the five minute bell change with the classes that are within the main building," the commenter said. "But with 2,000 plus students in the halls and trying to get to the 2000 building in five minutes, without running and hurting someone. Then being close to the door and you get locked out, this I do not agree with."

Goodwin said that Campbell students have had six minutes to transition between classes since the first day of school and that the time allotted wasn’t changed as a result of the crackdown on tardiness.

Other parents left comments about the increased police presence at the school. In a letter sent home to parents after the disruptions on March 2, Magee said there would be an increased police presence on campus.

“My student doesn't like going to school every day seeing police officers in the halls now because things are so out of control,” said “Long Time Resident and Concerned Parent.”

Despite the negative reaction from some parents and students to Campbell’s stricter policies, reports show that the halls sweeps are working. Goodwin said that on the first day tardy sweeps were implemented, there were 120 tardies reported. By the fourth day there were only 27.

“When students are held accountable, they can and do report to class on time,” Goodwin said.

In her letter, Magee said that 90 percent of students are "doing what we expect and they are making good choices and doing the right thing." Norman said she thinks the stricter attendance policy might have been better received if it had been implemented in a different way.

Goodwin said that no representatives from the Cobb County School District will be in attendance at the meeting Friday.