Thursday, February 5, 2015

Excuse the Tardy


After the incident I described on Monday, I was a little wary of the ED class. The instructional assistant (IA) informed me that if any students were tardy to mark them as such no matter their excuse.

About 10 minutes after the bell, a girl swept in. She was in a bit of a state. Her bus had been late. The panic in her voice was much more than the situation warranted, at least from my perspective. But she had no late bus pass (yes, they have them, and I've seen them often), so I marked her tardy.

The girl then explained to the rest of the class how worried she'd been. She was at the bus stop on time. She waited. And waited. And when the bus didn't arrive, she was sure she had been left. She said that she heard sirens and thought they were for her.

I informed the IA of the situation and that I had marked her tardy.

Well, this was going to be a problem. Because, it turns out the girl has to be at school, and if she is late, she needs it to be excused.

However, it was the girl's responsibility to get the tardy cleared by getting that late bus pass, something that the teacher and IA have been telling her for a while now. So, the IA escorted the girl to the attendance office to make her get the thing cleared up.

It was only later that I noticed that she was wearing an ankle monitor.

8 comments:

  1. Oh no! But at least she was making an effort to be at school! I can see why she might have been a bit flustered, but she still should know the rules she needs to follow if she is tardy :) That regular teacher must be a "saint" to be in that classroom (or take a lot of personal days off)

    betty

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  2. Whoa, an ankle monitor. That explains why she was worried about the sirens. I hope she really did just get stuck when the bus wouldn't come.

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  3. ankle monitor, huh. Well, I know what that means! Bad girl!

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  4. I don't look forward to the day I walk into a class and notice an ankle monitor on a student. Brave lady.

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    Replies
    1. But you've got younger kids. These are teenagers. 15, 16, & 17 year olds.

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  5. OMG-an ankle monitor? Who are these kids? You did the right thing-they must take responsibility and if she has been told many times, about the bus pass then she should have asked for one. Sometimes these people can put on an Oscar nominated performance too

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  6. The girl should have known to get a bus pass...You did the right thing. She needs to learn to be responsible for her actions. The county library system does a lot of outreach to corrections facilities and at some branches if's not uncommon to have someone come in to get their library card on their first day of freedom.

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