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Four Strikes and You’re Out!
By Danielle Barrasa, Staff Writer & Brianna
Diaz, Editor
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When
you’re late to class what do you do besides panicking? You head to lockout.
Lockout was created several
years ago to help reduce the number of class interruptions due to tardies.
However, students also began using lockout as a way to avoid going to class.
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What fun! Students dying of boredom in
lockout wish they had been to class on time.
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For all new students,
lockout is held behind the student store, on the second floor of the cafeteria
in the Learning Center. There you will find “X’s” on the floor of a classroom,
which you will stand on for the remainder of the class period for which
you are tardy. This year once you’ve been late to a class four times, you
will be dropped automatically. And if you are in lockout four times in
one day, you will be suspended.
There in no longer any
inconsistency among teachers as to how strictly each enforces Chaffey’s
tardy and truancy policy by completing the necessary paperwork and following
up on telephone calls to notify parents. Teachers don’t have to deal with
it anymore thanks to Mrs. Gloria Garcia, who’s in charge of lockout,
and administration. They will break your bad habit.
This year you have a choice of either coming to
school and going to class, or skipping class and getting dropped. “A few
years ago this was tried and was successful. by the end of the school year
only ten students showed up to lockout each day,” states
Mrs. Garcia, who has given up teaching English
to make sure more students are in class and not in lockout. She believes
that “the number one key to success is attendance.’’
This is an important issue for teachers and parents
because last year at this time, an astounding 643 students were tardy to
class in one week missing out on valuable information.
“Sometimes
we need discipline to help us succeed in life, but we also need to have
independence so that we will be responsible in the future without someone
telling us what to do,” strongly states April Ramirez (01).
Assistant Principal
Mrs. Orozco states, “Freshmen and sophomores are more likely to
go to lockout than juniors or seniors because juniors and seniors are older
and more mature. Fifty percent of freshman entering Chaffey end up dropping
out by their senior year.”
Parents
will be notified by phone every time their child goes to lockout, by letter
if the parents are unavailable, and there’s always a disciplinary officer
who wouldn’t mind making a visit to that student’s home. If you are dropped
from a class, you will have to retake that class in summer or night school
to make up the required credits.
Students
who graduate from high school can easily earn up to twice as much as dropouts.
It all begins with lockout. With this new policy students can learn responsibility
and use it in the future. Chaffey just wants more students in class, better
grades, more learning, and above all, more graduates.
To
those of you who attend class every day, don’t think that your willingness
and self-discipline is going unnoticed. If you have perfect attendance
through June 5, 2000, you could be eligible to win one of 25 yearbooks
that will be raffled off at the end of the school year. There are also
weekly $25 gift certificates for the Ontario Mills Mall awarded to students
at random for perfect attendance the previous week.
As
Mrs. Orozco shares, “All we want is the same thing your parents want: for
you to be in class and get an education. We do this because we care. It’s
called tough love.”
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