As the year is going on, tardies are becoming more of a problem for the students at Greeley West. This is the fifth week of school, so everyone should know where their classes are and when they start/end. The staff believe that students have had enough time to get used to this new Greeley West building, so they should be getting to every class on time, and if not they should get a pass if they were with a teacher or staff. 

The opposite is actually happening, however.  As of Thursday, the numbers of tardies are increasing every day. During the first full week of school, there were just 119 tardies from students. That’s not many latecomers for being the first week of school with over 1900 students.  But on August 31st, there were 286 tardies from the students, doubling the number of tardies from the first week. 

With the number of tardies increasing as the school year goes on, teachers and staff have said many things about the tardiness. The principal at Greeley West, Mr. Jeff Cranson gave his opinion on how the tardies are doing over the school year. “I do not think tardies are because of the larger building. Students are still just choosing to be late to class by loitering in the halls. Administration is looking at possible solutions with our lead teachers this week,” Cranson said.  

West has had a problem with tardiness from past years and there were consequences such as tardy sweeps, detentions, being sent home, getting lectured, etc. Those things scared many students to get to class – and they all worked for a while – but over time students returned to being late more frequently. The tardies from last year and this year are around the same number, but administration believes that the number of tardies will continue to increase. 

Many teachers are having problems with their students being tardy and they’re getting tired of it – especially from class to class. Math teacher Mr. Brandon Torrez has a very strong dislike towards students being late and as he yells, “Get to class on time!”

Seniors and juniors get the privilege of having off-campus lunch. Some students have expressed that there isn’t enough time for lunch to be able to go off campus, come back, and hope they have enough time to eat and get to class before the bell rings.   Teachers are getting fed up.   “I’m tired of my upperclassmen being late from lunch and they should get their lunch privileges taken away after a certain amount of tardies,” social studies teacher Mr. Stephen Paulson said.