The administration will now revoke the out-to-lunch privileges of students who return late to school from lunch based on when they scan back into the building, as part of a new policy instituted by Principal Stanley Teitel.
Students who come back late for the first time will have their out-to-lunch privileges revoked for 20 school days. Another violation of the policy will cause the student to lose his or her privileges for the rest of the term.
“You should get a warning the first time, and it depends on how late you get back,” freshman Vishal Prosad said. “This neighborhood is one of the safest neighborhoods. You don’t really have to track kids all the time, especially if they’re doing well in school.”
This school year is the first time that the scanners have been used during lunch periods. Teitel first announced he would be using scanners during lunch in a June 2007 memo. Students must now scan their ID cards when they go out to lunch and re-enter the building afterwards.
According to Teitel, the scanners can only be programmed to recognize one of the four-minute passing times on either end of the period as belonging to that designated lunch period. Teitel chose to exclude the passing time at the end of the lunch period.
“You can’t expect [the students] to come in early,” junior Shirley Lin said.”They don’t let you in until 10 minutes before the end of the period. So you can’t be early and you can’t be late. It’s really unfair.”
Teitel said that he introduced this policy to keep better track of students who enter and leave the building during lunch periods. “I’m ultimately responsible for your safety,” Teitel said. “You never know when an emergency will occur.”
He also said that students returning late from lunch can disrupt classes. “Sometimes the lateness is abusive,” he said. “They come in 15 minutes late.”
Junior Solana Ma was only a few seconds late coming back from lunch. “I scanned in right at the bell, and it marked me late,” she said. “[Assistant Principal Organization Randi Damesek] told me not to do it again or else she would take [my out-to-lunch privileges] away.”
Other students do not mind the policy. “If it’s for safety purposes, I don’t really care because it’s not much of a hassle,” said senior Chris Rong. “We had to take out ID cards before anyway.”
The Student Union (SU) has plans to meet with Teitel in order to negotiate over the lateness policy. “We’ve known for a long time we would have to scan out for lunch,” said SU President Jamila Ma. “But the lateness policy was a surprise.”
At the School Leadership Team (SLT) meeting on Tuesday, September 25, Teitel invited SLT members to form a subcommittee whose purpose would be to propose an alternative to the current lunch policy.