Attendance at Park is under careful watch as the hallway resets make a sweeping comeback. Getting to class on time is a struggle for various students. To help combat this issue, Park has implemented a past practice to encourage students to arrive to class on time—hallway resets. The Echo Staff believes hallway sweeps are ineffective, perpetuate negative reactions and target students.
According to the Park’s handbook, during a hallway reset, hallway supervision staff note the names of any student who remains in the hallway after the passing time bell. The Staff believes this process is unproductive and time-consuming. While the point of a hallway rest is to reduce the amount of class a student misses in the future, stopping a student who is actively trying to get to class causes them to miss more class material—defeating the purpose of the sweep. There are still assigned hall monitors during class time and the root cause of students missing class is still at hand.
The Staff acknowledges the intention behind the hallway resets—they’re a way for staff and the administration to minimize students being in the halls during the first ten minutes of class and to encourage students to get to class on time. However, the impact the resets have is far different than what they may intend them to be. The Echo Staff believes a lack of fairness and consistency amongst Park staff are majorly contributing to issues behind the sweeps.
While the restoration of hallway resets was an administrative decision, Park staff are encouraged to acknowledge the decision by enforcing it—just like any school policy. The Echo Staff believes the inconsistent expectations and executions of the resets on behalf of Park staff have a negative impact on the outcome of the new practice. Students and staff alike don’t enjoy hearing students pound on the door to get into class. When students are late to class due to a reset or in general, it makes a class difficult to function as it’s a major distraction. To combat this issue, The Staff believes improving student attendance starts with the teacher. Instead of seeking out students in the halls, if teachers notice inconsistencies in a student’s attendance, communication with a family, administration, or with the student themselves may go a long way. A process similar to parking violations policy(s) but with attendance-like expectations could have a more positive impact on the student mindset regarding attendance due to its personability and intent.
Hallway resets were reintroduced to students through Park Connections slides. The slides indicated that students at Park were falling back into bad attendance habits. While it is a student’s responsibility to get to class on time, not all students care about their attendance or its impact on their learning. The Echo Staff believes hallway resets are being portrayed as a threat, which is impacting its lack of effectiveness. Random sweeps are not enough for students to want to get to class on time—students who struggle with attendance may not care enough to make an ongoing change in their attendance after one hallway reset. The Staff believes seeking to understand the root cause of one’s flakey attendance as well as inflicting a “No-Pass Ban” might be more effective than locking students out of the classroom when the point of a reset is to get students to class. While varying students have different reasons for their classroom attendance, there may be some themes at hand that have yet to be discovered. Taking time to research and understand the reasoning for the tardiness of students might allow Park and policy-makers to grow by making effective attendance policies in the future.
The Echo Staff believes there is some inherent bias behind the sweeps and discriminatory practices are being magnified during the resets. This bias is leading to students feeling unfairly targeted—while eliminating bias is impossible, reducing it is not. The Staff believes the relationships students have with those executing the resets have an impact on the likelihood of being given grace during a reset. Looking for students with intention is a practice that can be improved upon if those initiating sweeps and supervising the hallways during class time acknowledge their bias and seek to understand and work with a common goal of adequate student attendance in mind.
The main objective of hallway resets is to get students to class on time. While hallway resets are effective for some, it is a practice that comes with a lot of anxiety and unfair impacts on others. The Echo Staff unanimously believes the administration and Park policy-makers should consider an alternative policy to hallway resets as the intent of hallway resets is not currently having a positive impact on students.
