What Are the Effects of Tardiness Among Students?
The effects of tardiness among students are mostly negative since tardiness is both disruptive and inconsiderate. Teachers should have a strict policy in place to deal with the issue, and they should follow through with their policy when necessary.
According to the Global Post, arriving to school and classes on time is important, but sometimes even the most punctual students find themselves running behind schedule. Tardiness is measured differently depending on the organization, but technically anyone who arrives to class after its official start is considered tardy.
How a teacher chooses to handle tardiness could depend on several factors. First, many schools have policies for lateness that state the penalties for being late for class. For example, a school could have a policy that three instances of tardiness equal an absence, or students who are late to class lose participation points for the day. If there is no policy in place, a teacher can create a penalty that helps to curb the habit of arriving for class late, such as requiring latecomers to take a quiz or assigning additional homework for the infraction.
It is important to keep tardiness to a minimum because students who habitually arrive late to class are disruptive. When a student arrives to a class after the lecture has already started, the teacher is forced to either stop lecturing to adjust the attendance sheet or make a note to adjust it later. For other students, the distraction of a student getting to their seat, taking out their books and writing utensils and shuffling papers takes away from their learning experience. For these reasons, tardiness should be discouraged as much as possible.
