Justice Page Middle School parents received an email on November 7 about the school’s new tardy policy. Justice Page Assistant Principal Erik Hensel recently spoke at a meeting of Justice Page parents about the policy via Zoom. A short clip of that meeting was anonymously shared with Minneapolis Schools Voices. The meeting was held in December but we do not know the date of the meeting. 

During that meeting, Hensel noted that since the policy went into effect, there has been a 50% drop in the number of students accumulating a high number of tardies. Hensel also said that the school administration is communicating with parents at the end of each week about their children’s attendance and the school’s tardy policy. 

“The interactions that I have had with families have been supportive and understanding,” said Hensel. 

Principal Shannon Tenner also spoke at that meeting.

Principal Shannon Tenner (left) and Assistant Principal Erik Hensel (right) spoke about the school's new attendance policy at a Zoom meeting with parents in Decemeber.

“We had our first Saturday School December 2nd. After the data was pulled, three students showed to have excessive tardies. Those three students weren’t even representative of the data that was pulled before as the trial data. They were assigned Saturday School,” said Tenner. 

The first Saturday School, where students who have excessive tardies make up the lost classroom time, was on December 3. 

 “What we are noticing now after December 2nd is that there is an uptick in tardies, because they know no Saturday School is going to be happening,” Tenner said. 

In the weeks since originally reporting on Justice Page’s new policy, additional feedback and reporting on tardy policies and discipline have been shared with us from across the district. 

We have learned that attendance, tardy, and discipline policies vary across the district and each of its schools. Exactly what those policies are is often unclear. 

For example, the Anderson United Middle School Student Handbook says, “We are committed to the process of co-creating and implementing an equitable tardy policy that is in line with our school values where families, teachers, and staff all work together to support student learning, safety, and well-being. Expectation: All students are on time to class every period with our 4-minute passing time (e.g., in class when the bell rings).” 

We are in the process of reaching out to MPS schools regarding their tardy policies.