By Arik Espinosa, staff writer
Indian Trail High School & Academy performs a system of hall sweeps to keep students inside of class and out of the hallways. About 2,400 students currently attend the school, where there is limited security. Sweeps are announced daily or randomly so that anyone in the hallway that didn’t go to class gets caught by security and given a lunch detention. If they don’t serve it, then they will get a referral and a call home.
Sweeps are a temporary solution to an ongoing problem. School officials never conduct a sweep during first period or lunch. First period is understandable because of people coming in late due to traffic or the morning train. Lunch time, however, takes up two periods and students can still be late or not show up when they change lunch periods during the day. So it’s about three out of seven periods that sweeps can’t be done to try to solve truancy and tardiness issues that are happening.
Chronically tardy students are only going to try to be in class on time during the announced sweep. Once the sweep is over, those students return back to do what they want. So, what is the point of giving students detentions for missing one period out of seven periods? It is like slapping water, it makes a ripple for a time, but then it returns back to its original state.
Once a person gets swept they are given a lunch detention that they must serve and then they are on their way. Suppose someone that doesn’t wander the halls at all and is usually on time to class is late one time during a random sweep. Should that student serve a lunch detention for being late for that one class for the first time of the entire year? The answer to that is of course not, but it does happen. The people that wander the halls all the time and don’t show up for class are the ones who need to be punished.
During sweeps, teachers don’t let students into their classrooms as soon as the sweep is announced. They will lock their doors and only open it when the student shows a pass or a sweep pass. There are students that show up class after the sweep is called and some teachers force them out. Now, isn’t the point of a sweep to get people to come to class? So, there are also students getting detention for getting to class a second late. That is just cruel punishment.
Sweeps are a zero tolerance. Instead of punishing those who regularly ditch class, administration is just giving out detentions to whoever is in the halls during a sweep.
Some students during a sweep leave the school during the sweep because it might seem better to leave early and get a couple of truancies than get one detention for something not worth the punishment.
If school officials want students to get to class on time then there should be more incentives for students to do this. Giving out hawk talons isn’t good enough. A regular sock with a hawk on the top of it isn’t really a reward that would make people want to get a talon.
Reward the students who are on time by making teachers give out free hawk gear, such as a hooded sweatshirt, or a hat, or extra credit to whatever class they want. Other ways to get people to class might be to make attendance requirements a part of participation in sports or to attend extracurricular activities. There are some dances that do this, requiring no more than five tardies and no truancies in order to do any type of dance. It would be better to change those rules to make it unacceptable for students to have no more than two tardies and zero truancies.
Sweeps do the job for one period, but that doesn’t lessen the problem, it makes the students move faster when it’s announced over the intercom. Having it for every period would cause more chaos and students would rebel against that in a heartbeat. There are more ways for a get a student to class. Sweeps only cause fear which gives temporary power over those who are afraid, but not those who aren’t. It is better to reward the people that do the desired behavior with something that everyone would want, then people will make the effort.