WOODBURY — As the 2024-25 school year continues here at Nonnewaug, there have been several rule changes aimed at getting students in school more consistently. One policy change that is particularly impactful requires students who are late to school to get an immediate lunch detention.
This policy left many students feeling shocked as they came back to school.
“I think this idea is outrageous and a waste of everyone’s time,” said junior Ledge Lupo. “It’s unneeded.”
Although many students are not in agreement with the tardy rule, administration is seeing notable improvement in student attendance.
“The statistics are incredible,” assistant principal Declan Curtin said. “Last year it was very typical to have over 30 tardies in a day. We are well under five [per day] and sometimes zero on certain days this year; this shows that the policy is working.”
Although the thought behind the rule is to make sure everyone gets to school on time, it can be difficult to include all students in this rule when not all students have control of getting to school on time.
“Driving affects me because I’m not the one driving,” said Lupo, who’s received one lunch detention so far, “so it’s not really my fault.”
Out-of-district students feel the crunch, too.
“I try to wake up as soon as I can so I can get here earlier, but being that I live 30 minutes away from school makes it harder to get here,” said junior Ty Starzkisi, who commutes from Beacon Falls. “When I get stuck behind buses or in traffic, I don’t know how to plan ahead for that; I can’t know when the construction is going on.”
Lupo thinks this rule should be worked around and modified in the future.
“I think after five to eight tardies, then yeah, there should be a detention,” said Lupo. “[That’s the] same as last year. I thought that was fair.”
Curtin said that there is room for understanding.
“We always do consider special circumstances,” Curtin said. “When a parent tells us something significant happened that day, we will be human beings; we are understanding. Parents need to call the school in the morning in order to get a tardy excuse for their child.”
When reflecting on the future of this policy, Curtin agrees that there is room for adjustments.
“There’s always a discussion,” said Curtin. “[Principal Mykal] Kuslis does have a Student Advisory Board, so that would be one of the places where kids can bring this up.”
Administration does take student voices into consideration, but not all ideas can be approved.
“We are always tweaking, changing, listening for advice or ideas, and we welcome those from our students,” said Curtin, “but they also need to understand why we do things, and when you look at the data this year, [it] will tell you that they do care what time they come in.”
