According to M-House Principal Larry Boone, the procedure was changed because school administrators noticed that students were out of class for long periods of time when they had to go to the admin building to receive their tardy passes.

School officials are hopeful that the new procedure will help students return to class sooner and make it easier to discipline those who do not return to class immediately after receiving a pass.

“What we were noticing was that kids who were tardy frequently were selecting the periods they wanted to be tardy and they’d take 10 minutes to go to the admin building, five minutes to wait in line, get their pass and then take 10 minutes to walk back,” S-House Principal Jason Kurtenbach said.

According to Dean of Students Catherine Baxter, satellites have been installed in every house office. The tardy system is now server based rather than computer based, meaning that administrators can access students records and input tardies from any house office instead of only from the main office.

The S-House office was the first house office to begin testing out the new database software.

Kurtenbach expects five to 15 tardy students per period and does not anticipate this causing a problem for the house offices.

According to O-House Principal Clara Herran, the new procedure will make it easier for adults on campus to keep track of all students. Herran says the old procedure made it easier for students to cut class and with the new procedure administrators will be able to ensure that students return to class right away.

“What I’ve done now a few times is actually walked the child to the nearest office and they get their pass right away,” Herran said, “It’s easier to get the hallways cleared and get kids to class easier because you can actually watch them go where they’re supposed to.”

mlopezzubiri@thesamohi.com