It turns out that it’s not just students who are late. Due to a lack of timely attendance reports, the attendance office has devised a way to make sure teachers remember to take attendance.

“Understandably, with all the wonderful, busy things that happen in a classroom, sometimes teachers might forget to enter attendance,” John Bacon, City High Principal, said. “Therefore, we created a system where teachers get a simple little reminder note if they have not entered attendance within the first 10 minutes of class.”

Simple, right? But not all teachers agree. Some, like French teacher Tony Balcaen, think that the reminders can disrupt the class.

“I think there’s less disruptive ways to do it,” Balcaen said, “When they come in and you’re in the middle of explaining something and they come in and they give [the reminder note] to you and it stops what you’re doing…it’s disruptive.”

Balcaen also thinks that the reminder also makes him lose respect with his students. 

“It makes the teacher kind of look bad for a minute in front of the whole class,” Balcaen said, “You lose a bit of credibility.”

Still, it doesn’t seem like this policy is going away. Getting attendance in quickly is important for student safety.

“Parents deserve to know if their child is in class when they’re supposed to be,” Bacon said. “If a student is not where they’re supposed to be, parents are notified in a timely manner. If we do not enter attendance correctly, then we are not providing parents with accurate information.” 

Troy Peters, the theatre development teacher, finds that the reminder notes are a useful in reminding him to take attendance, even if at times it interrupts class.

“It happens sometimes, when we get busy,” Peters said, “It’s the beginning of class, you get so many questions from students and you’re not thinking about taking attendance right away. I think it has been helpful.”