At Kennedale High School, a public school in Texas, we had a severe issue with students who were not

being held accountable for their decisions regarding whether or not they were getting to class in an
appropriate amount of time. Students were roaming the halls causing various classroom distractions as
well as finding various opportunities to break school rules because they were unsupervised and not
participating positively in the educational environment. A team of faculty and administrative personnel
began with this question and moved forward to assist in the design of a new program for addressing
class tardy issues without putting more responsibility on the teaching faculty or the thinly stretched
administrative team on our campus. Students were continuously tardy roaming the halls causing a
variety of issues, but more importantly were taking an inordinate amount of time in the day of the
administrative team as each student was being seen independently to assign any possible student
discipline. Each teacher was forced to keep track of and report each tardy for each student to the
office. This system was very ineffective and extremely inefficient making student accountability a
complete nightmare. The only way for our old system to work was to dedicate one member of the
administrative team solely to the duty of student accountability for their classroom attendance.

We began to find and design the solution to our problem with a tardy system that forced students to get
a pass to class any time they were late arriving to each class period. The second component of our
original solution was that the system would assign detentions, in school suspension, or dictate the point
at which the student must report to the office to see an administrator as they had surpassed their
allotted number of tardies for that class period. The Hall Walker system improved our student
attendance but still allowed students to be tardy multiple times within any particular day without
consequence as they were still allowed to attain three tardies per class period without receiving any
form of discipline. The main problem with our solution at this point was that the system was server
reliant and our campus servers were not handling the new workload effectively or efficiently. We then
moved to a web based system, the Student Conductor system, that fast, effective, and has an
unlimited amount of storage for our campus to keep records of, track, and assign discipline for all
students as they choose not to comply with school rules regarding their class attendance. Students
were limited to three tardies total per semester without any student discipline being assigned. Student
discipline is much more efficient as they receive notification of any assigned discipline immediately upon
receiving their receipt from the tardy kiosk. The personnel holding detention at lunch and after school
are also notified through the Student Conductor system so students have the option to report and serve
their discipline immediately to return to compliance with school policies.

How Do We Get Students in the Classroom? Daren Childs

In addressing the need on our campus to get students out of the hallways and in to the classroom, it has
been our goal to improve our students punctuality to class. Our second problem, like most public
school campuses, is that student discipline for this issue was taking away from the administrations
ability to be functional instructional leaders due to an inordinate number of student discipline issues
created by deteriorating student punctuality. By addressing student punctuality and student
attendance, we have also found ways to incorporate a wide array of rewards for students who are acting
and functioning appropriately in the educational environment. On our public school campus, we have
implemented a system for addressing the student tardy problem while initiating increased student
participation in various activities while attempting to improve student morale, school climate, and
school culture simultaneously. We have developed a positive rewards system where student are
rewarded in positive ways rather than simply punishing the few students that continually swim against
the positive current that is being built on our high school campus.

Introduction / Background

We, at Kennedale High School, had a severe attendance and punctuality problem with our student body
dating back to my initial time working with the school district. We are a school of 960 students in the
southeastern portion of Tarrant County and serve grades 9-12. Our school campus and school district is
very diverse as we have students that come to us from all walks of life. Our native Kennedale
population is relatively middle class with hard working families. The remaining portion of our student
population comes to us from the southwestern portion of Arlington, Texas where we have an even
broader group of families and cultures represented.

We are a school of vast ethnic diversity as we are represented by a wide array of student cultural
backgrounds. We have a 50% white student population with an 18% African American student
population. Our Hispanic student population is at 24% and we serve a 4% Pacific Islander population as
well as several other ethnic backgrounds that are representative of 2% or less of our campus
population. We also serve a student body that is 50% socioeconomically disadvantaged and 20% of our
student population receives some type of special education services.

As I find myself delving in to our need to improve student attendance and more directly student
punctuality to class, I am serving our campus in a variety of different capacities. I deal with a very broad
array of students on our campus as I teach our senior level United States Government course as well as
being the administrative intern for the high school campus. I am the social studies department
chairman as well as serving on the Campus Improvement Planning committee and the campus Title I
committee. I also spend time serving on our campus Attendance committee while finding myself
working as a part of our Response to Intervention team at the high school level.

Our high school campus was losing an inordinate amount of instructional time as students were allowed
to roam the halls with little or no consequences as they arrived to class at their leisure. We were
struggling to get the students out of the hallway, keep them in occupied areas, and keep the students in
situations where they were under proper supervision and monitoring throughout the school day. We
had a growing problem that had increased exponentially in my brief time on campus. We, over the past
five years, have increased in the number of students from the Arlington, Texas area that are attending
our high school thus increasing the urban presence on our campus. Kennedale has traditionally been a
more rural school and school district. Many of the issues that we have faced in the past five years are
new to both the campus and the school district. Many of the new students that were walking our halls
were students moving in from neighboring school districts with much less relaxed rules regarding
student punctuality and student behavior.

Along with our student population changing causing a change in the student attitude toward conforming
to our rules and regulations, we saw that our campus had another set of problems to face. We had
administrative rules that allowed for every student to be late three times per class period before that
student faces any form of accountability. Students could have a total of twenty-one times where they
are up to 10 minutes late to class with relatively no consequences imposed on them. Students were
playing the game so we were losing as much as two hundred ten minutes of instructional time per
student at various times throughout each school semester. Throughout the entire school year, students
could accumulate a total of 420 minutes of missed class time without having any accountability for their
transgression. This is a total of 8.4 class period of instructional time being missed without students
having to make up any time or being held accountable for their decisions. The other administrative
problem facing our campus was the fact that students who were late to class never had any
accountability unless each individual teacher took roll, completed a tardy notification form after every
third tardy, and returned the form to the appropriate assistant principal. Because the entire system is
left at the discretion of the classroom teachers, often times student were never held to any standard of
accountability as teachers had a variety of duties in the classroom that took away from their ability to
complete all of the necessary steps to hold student s accountable at all.

Through the action research process, we were looking to see what positive impact our new system of
tardy accountability could create on campus. Would high school students respond positively and
correctly to student rewards and increased levels of accountability through a new system of tracking
student tardies? We wanted to know if our new reward and accountability system would improve the
student culture and climate while decreasing the number of tardies that students received each school
day, each week, and ultimately throughout the school year.

When dealing with student attendance and student punctuality, every secondary school campus could
benefit from this action research project. I have been a part of the educational community for 20 years
and worked in a variety of school campuses and every single campus had issues with student tardies and
student punctuality. This action research project is directed at the secondary school topic of reducing
student attendance and punctuality issues with a positive reward program that allows students to gain
privileges in school by becoming a more positive influence in the educational environment by reducing
or even eliminating student punctuality issues.

Throughout the action research process, there are several terms that may be confusing. The following
terms are worthy of defining to clarify the subject matter.

ADA average daily attendance; relates directly to student attendance and student
punctuality

Student Conductor the web based and hosted tardy system developed by faculty and
administrative team members at Kennedale High School to handle student accountability for tardiness
while assigning the necessary penalties for students who continually operate outside the parameters
that are appropriate in the educational environment.

Hallwalker System the original, locally hosted tardy system designed and developed be
Kennedale High School for dealing with the inordinate number of student tardiness that are detracting
from the positive learning environment on our campus.

KAT Points a system of reward points that students can redeem for jean/spirit days,
homework passes, passes to attempt homework again in certain class periods, or spirit shirt produced
by our KAT Store student team.

Literature Review

In the field of student attendance and tardy issues, there is a wealth of research done in the field of
education. Getting students to class in an efficient, effective manner is a critical first step to a successful
educational experience for our students. Schools must look to find ways to incorporate parent support,
encourage students to attend class regularly and in a timely manner, and hold students who do not
comply with campus and school district guidelines accountable for their decisions.

The Research in Middle Level Education issued a research brief regarding the problems facing middle
schools directly dealing attendance and school climate. Their study is based on the belief that students
who regularly attend school are much more likely to be successful academically than those who do not
attend on a regular, punctual basis (Caldarella 2011). The RMLE also states that a critical step to having
truly successful attendance policies, your policies must be a part of a comprehensive plan that creates a
student centered and learning focused environment (Caldarella 2011). This is unbelievably important as
you sell the students, faculty, and most importantly the parents and support community about your
plans for improving student attendance.

The RMLE also gives several rules that, once followed, make your policies and programs much stronger
and more effective. Attendance policies and programs must be very clear and easy to understand and
they should only be a part of a student centered school climate. The thought that attendance policies
are only a small portion of the overall process that encourages students to attend classes and report to
classes in a punctual manner is often contrary to the beliefs of many school districts and school
campuses. Schools do need rules and policies to guide students regarding their attendance, however, a
positive school climate where students want to attend and learn can be just as powerful of a driving
force behind reducing student attendance problems. The RMLE study also emphasizes that schools
should incorporate more strict penalties for attendance problems but that schools can build on existing
programs to improve student attendance. Younger students can benefit from transition programs that
familiarize them with the appropriate attendance procedures while giving them an opportunity to
become more familiar with the campus layout so finding their way around campus is less problematic
(Caldarella 2011). The use of career education programs, work study programs, and or college dual
credit programs can effectively and positively encourage students to attend classes regularly and in a
timely manner. Other programs that can have a positive impact in reducing a broad manner array of
attendance issues are academic support programs for underachieving students and a variety of
extracurricular activities.

In an additional study by the Educational Partnerships Incorporated in 2000, they point out that
excessive student absences and tardiness lead to poor student achievement. The Educational
Partnerships indicates that a variety of issues lead to student attendance problems such as student
boredom, student frustration, poor teacher-student relations, or a lack of the basic skills necessary for
further educational successes. Often times the attendance and tardy policies of schools are designed to
work in conjunction with local law enforcement and judicial systems that are designed to support the
schools to improve compulsory attendance.

The Educational Partnerships study indicates that a critical component of reducing student attendance
problems is the offering of incentives for students that have good or improved attendance on a regular
basis. These incentives can be a wide variety of possibilities from free lunch coupons to ice cream
socials. Some schools have offered raffles for iPods, laptop computers, or even in some cases a car for
students that are compliant with all attendance policies and procedures. The study goes on to further
offer suggestions that students can be encouraged to improve their attendance as schools offer
tutoring, provide drug prevention programs, or make mentors available to help guide other students
through the various pitfalls of teenage life. Schools can look at the possibility of parent and community
education programs, improving the campus environment making it more open and welcoming, or having
a closed campus eliminating the opportunity for students to leave campus for any reason during the
school day. Many or all of these suggestions may apply to campuses around Texas, however, they are
all valid points that are worth discussing as a campus addresses poor student attendance and more
specifically their ability to reduce student tardiness throughout the school day.

Jason Scott Moore addresses student tardy issues in his study the Best Practices Employed by Georgia
High School Adminstrators to Reduce Student Tardiness. Mr. Moore looks in depth at the various
factors that can have a negative impact on students who tend to me tardy to class. The factors discussed
in the study by Mr. Moore are school size, school location, minority enrollment, socioeconomic status
and gender of students who are tardy to class (Moore 2010). These factors can all play a role in students
who choose not to remain punctual to classes, however, he points out that there are more factors that
tend to have a stronger negative impact on student punctuality.

Schools that see certain behaviors, especially from their teaching or administrative staff, have an
increase in the amount of student tardiness. Mr. Moore addresses the fact that schools with a lack of
teacher and administrative presence in the hallways have a distinctly higher rate of student tardiness
(Moore 2010). Schools can also address the student tardiness issue by working to eliminate
overcrowding, stagger bathroom breaks, and increase the monitoring of locker areas of the school
(Moore 2010). The final issues that schools must deal with in order to reduce the student tardiness
issue are student related. Students may be defiant or overly social between classes. Both of these
student related issues can lead to severe student attendance issues, however, they can be greatly
reduced or eliminated these issues by increasing teacher and administrative presence in the hallways
throughout the school day.

As with the studies from the Educational Partnerships Incorporated, the study presented by Mr. Moore
addresses that fact that there are several ways for schools to reduce student tardiness. Schools must
have clear consistent consequences for their students (Moore 2010). These consequences should also
be clearly defined and explained to the parents and community that you serve. Schools can utilize
consequences such as after school detentions or lunch detentions in order for students to better
understand the severity of their actions and decisions (Moore 2010). Students can also receive
consequences through the use of in school suspension or Saturday school detention if the student
tardiness issue continues to be an insurmountable obstacle for improving the students educational
experience.

Mr. Randy Sprick and K Daniels, in their article over student tardy issues in school titled Every Minute
Counts, address a variety of issues addressed by teachers on a daily basis. They report that the teachers
they interviewed stated that the first four to eight minutes of classes was a waste of time as they spend
this time dealing with students straggling in being a disruption to instruction (Sprick 2007). The issue of
student tardiness takes away from the possible learning experience for both teachers and students in
the classroom. Not only does the student tardy problem cause losses in educational opportunities, but
students that are unsupervised in hallways lead to bullying, fighting, and any number of other forms of
student misconduct (Sprick 2007). Often times, these unwanted and undesirable behaviors carry over in
to the classroom from the hallways causing even greater classroom disruptions that not only take away
from the educational opportunities for the tardy students but cause other students to lose instructional
time as well.

According to Sprick and Daniels, the other problems that schools have when dealing with student
tardiness are widespread. Teacher inconsistencies are a critical component that is often a leading cause
of student tardiness (Sprick 2007). As teachers show various levels of inconsistency in their
enforcement of tardy and attendance policies, they create student confusion about the real importance
of said policies. In their article, Sprick and Daniels show how schools that allow student tardiness are
offering the suggestion that school is not really important (Sprick 2007).

Sprick and Daniels suggest that there are ways to address and correct this negative factor in the
educational environment. One such way is the positive sweep of the hallways by both available
teachers and administrators (Sprick 2007). Students would be swept toward the proper tardy station
in order to obtain the necessary pass to return to class as quickly as possible. By having separate areas
for students to report as they are swept out of the hallways, you reduce the amount of time students
are waiting to return to class and teachers and administrators have the opportunity to build
relationships with the kids who are frequently tardy to class (Sprick 2007). At times, if students know
there is someone on campus caring about them and looking out for them, they are more willing to
follow or comply with attendance or tardy policies. Not only can the positive sweep concept round up
students that are continuously tardy to class, but it can help lead to a more positive school climate and
culture.
In the study, Too Late to Learn by Ronald James Farrar, a similar set of observations and deductions can
be seen. Farrar points out that the national statistics show that tardiness is a major problem in the
middle school setting. Students are losing an array of benefits from their possible educational
opportunities (Farrar 2010). Students are losing valuable instructional time when they arrive to class
late, and they are disrupting the entire instructional environment for other students as they become a
distraction to others in their classes (Farrar 2010). As students accumulate a more excessive amount of
tardiness, he or she is having a significantly negative impact on their future. Many of the future
implications of students with an excessive amount of tardiness lend themselves to academic failure, an
increased chance of the student dropping out, and possible fighting or bullying in the school setting
(Farrar 2010). Students who are late to class also have an increased risk of drug dependency and
emotional issues stemming from other misconduct that occurs when students are not properly
supervised. Farrar goes on to point out that student tardiness is a key factor used to determine whether
a student will become at risk.

If schools continue to ignore student tardy issues, students can develop serious social or emotional
issues. Farrar goes on further to make similar suggestions to the previously discussed studies and
articles regarding possible solutions to reduce and hopefully eliminate student tardiness.

Action Research Design

Subjects

The target population for this study was all students in grades 9-12 at Kennedale High School from
September 2011 through May 2012. Our target in the entire student body of the high school campus
therefore we took in to account every ethnic and socioeconomic group represented on our campus. By
having the opportunity to utilize our entire campus student population, we were better able to see
more of the initial problems that needed to be addressed in our system to make it more successful. We
had complete autonomy to address, research, and fix the problems as they arose allowing for better
development of an overall program that would address the needs of more high school campuses rather
than just fitting the needs of our specific campus.

Procedures

In an attempt to resolve our issues with student attendance and more specifically addressing student
promptness to class, we began with the idea of utilizing a positive reward system in combination with a
computer based tardy system to reduce the number of tardies that our students were
accumulating. We began with the idea that we needed to get students out of the hallways, cafeteria,
and quad area and get them in to their classrooms so they were not missing instructional time or
interrupting classes as they enter late.
In March of 2011, we began implementing a locally server based tardy system on our campus. The
system, The Hallwalker, was a good first step at eliminating or at the very least reducing our students
lack of punctuality. This system utilized a full desktop computer with a scanner designed and
programmed by Mr. Jay Beck, a campus technology instructor. The infared scanner and computer were
linked to our district servers so that every time a student was tardy to class the system could
accumulate, count, and assign possible discipline for infractions above the allotted number of tardies
allowed by campus policy. The system would assign possible consequences for students with persistent
attendance problems and the system also allowed system administrators to review students that were
conforming to the new system and reward them with KAT Points for following campus policy. The policy
changes were review by a committee consisting of our campus principal Ms. Rita Whatley, an assistant
principal Mr. Jeff Kreiger, math department chair Ms. Jennifer Cook, science department chair Ms.
Candice Hilton and myself.

The problems with this particular system were quickly realized as we continued to utilize the Hallwalker
system from August through December of the 2011-2012 school year. The first problem that we
encountered was the inability of our servers to handle the significant amount of data accumulated
through the tardy system. The second problem was one dealing with campus policy as students were
still accumulating tardies per class period. Students could still be late to class three times per class
period per semester without any consequences. In December of 2011, our campus policy change,
recommended by our campus committee, was approved by the Board of Education so that students
were then allowed three free tardies to all seven class periods per semester without consequence.
Students would accumulate the number of tardies requiring consequences at a much faster pace if they
continued to choose to follow their persistent lack of punctuality. The final problem with this original
system was that it required a regular printer that had to be maintained with ink, computer paper, and
constant monitoring to ensure that the equipment was working properly at all times so students were
not delayed even further in getting to class since they were already

In January of 2012, we unveiled a new web-based tardy system. The Student Conductor system is hosted
by an off-campus web hosting company that allows us to store an inordinate amount of information
much more easily. The second web-based program, designed by Mr. Jay Beck and Mr. Shaheen Matuni,
was much more efficient and effective. Through our new web hosting service, we are able to add
servers more easily to in order to handle the amount of data generated by our new tardy system. The
Student Conductor system is able to track student tardies, assign any necessary discipline for students,
notify their assistant principal of any discipline assigned via email, and notify the parents of the student
via email every time they are tardy. This system helps to create a more positive school community by
keeping parents involved and informed in their students educational experience. This new system also
utilized a much more user friendly system of a touch screen monitor, small hard drive, infared scanner,
and thermal printer that produces a tardy slip much like a receipt. The system is much faster and less
expensive to operate as well as getting students to class in a much more effective and efficient
manner. Students were no longer in lines waiting on their tardy passes to print, but rather got their pass
and were on their way to class in under one minute in most cases.
The new Student Conductor system was then utilized from January through May of 2012. This system
allowed administration to track student tardy numbers by class period, by day, by week, and by month if
necessary. Student records for tardies could be accessed easily and made available to parents, courts,
or for any necessary conference regarding that particular student at any time. One other feature of the
new web-based program is that the Student Conductor can be accessed from any computer rather than
being limited to a network computer like the original Hallwalker system. The finalized version of the
Student Conductor system was unveiled in August of 2012.

The latest version of the Student Conductor system not only tracks and handles student tardies, but
tracks student referrals, fines, and emails the parents of that student any time his or her account is
updated with new information. Parents are notified of fines, tardies, and student discipline assigned
through the administrative team so they are constantly informed and in the loop regarding any
pertinent information regarding their student and his or her decisions while on campus.

Data Collection

For this action research project, the data was collected through our previous system for student
attendance and accountability. Ms. Candice Allstot was instrumental in assisting me with data collection
as she accessed the previous database to extract student attendance data by grade level and date in
order for me to better understand the impact that our new tardy policy and tracking system had on our
campus.

Data was collected for the previous school year so we could better understand the proposed problem on
our campus. Data was collected for each day of the school year leading up to the implementation of the
original Hallwalker tardy tracking system. After the implementation of our tardy system, data was
collected continuously in order to determine the overall effectiveness of the system in reducing student
tardies. As it became apparent that campus policy changes were also in order, it was determined that
modifications to the system would also become necessary to improve productiveness. The final stage of
data collection came as the Student Conductor system went online. When student attendance, and
more specifically student punctuality, became a part of the positive reward system on our campus, data
was further collected to verify the positive impact that this system was having on the campus climate,
educational environment, and community outreach aspects of our campus vision and goals.
Findings

Tardies by Six Weeks Prior to Tracking System

The number of tardies per six weeks prior to our implementation of the student tardy tracking system:

1st Six Weeks 1730

2nd Six Weeks 1125

3rd Six Weeks 926

Average number of tardies per six weeks 1260

Tardies by Six Weeks After Tracking System

1st Six Weeks 473

2nd Six Weeks 622

3rd Six Weeks 268

Average number of tardies per six weeks - 454

Conclusions and Recommendations

After spending much time and effort studying and attempting to rectify our student attendance issues
on our high school campus, I have become increasingly familiar with the various attendance problems
facing our campus. As I began to delve in to the issues of student attendance and more directly student
punctuality to class, I found that our campus had two major problems with student attendance. The
first problem was that the accountability system in place on our campus was a completely
ineffective. The second major problem with our student tardy problem stemmed from our campus
policy regarding how a student with an excessive tardy problem was to be handled.

Through this action research project, we, at Kennedale High School, found that we have significantly
lowered the number of students that are arriving late to class. By having a system in place that better
tracks the number of times that a student is late to class without adding additional duties to the
classroom teachers, we can put a system in place that gets students out of the halls and in to the
classroom where they have the opportunity to improve their learning. As students are in class in a more
effective manner, we give them every opportunity to get the entire lesson from their teachers in their
classes while also having the opportunity to learn from their peers as well. When students are in class in
a timely fashion, they are also not a distraction to all of the other students when they arrive
late. Teachers are not stopping their lesson to correct attendance, and they are stopping the entire
class to get the tardy students caught up with everyone else.

As we learned that moving the tardy tracking system to a web-based and hosted system, the system
became a more effective, efficient way to track and reduce the number of tardy students. We were able
to achieve a significant reduction in the number of students that were late to class, however, it is still a
work in progress.
By working to incorporate our tardy tracking system, The Student Conductor, in to our positive rewards
system, we have begun to help establish a more positive school climate and culture. Students are able
to utilize their KAT points for a variety of different rewards on campus. Various academic departments
offer coupons for students to get a second attempt at an assignment to improve their average while
other students get coupons for spirit/jean days with their KAT points. As we continue to work to
improve the system, we are continually adding more, bigger, better benefits that our students can attain
by conforming to the campus policies and procedures that are in place for a safer, effective, positive
school environment.

The wonderful aspect of the Student Conductor system is that it can be adjusted to fit the specific needs
of your campus. It can also be adjusted to meet with your campus or district policies. By having the
data stored through an outside web-hosting service, your information is secure without having your
local servers being put in danger of information overload. If I were to repeat a project like this, I would
go straight to a web-hosted system that takes care of the data storage. The cost of the equipment
needed to run the system is negligible and is actually maintained by Student Conductor or your own
staff can handle the task easily. Anyone who has a working knowledge of the internet, windows, and
websites can easily become familiar with and run the Student Conductor system.