A low-tech solution to student tardiness
School secretary buys alarm clocks to help get students moving

Shirley Magden is the one who has to write the tardy slips. It's not a lot of work for a school secretary like Magden to fill out one slip. But when lots of kids are showing up late--at the same time she's juggling all her other duties--it becomes a problem.

So when Magden, a member of the Detroit Association of Educational Office Employees who works at Berry Elementary School, started seeing the same faces in need of a tardy slip day after day, she began asking questions. "Explain to me what's going on," she prodded the youngsters. One common response: "Nobody woke me up on time."

Magden's solution was as simple as it was inexpensive. She bought alarm clocks--the clock-radio types typically available on sale for less than $10--for the chronically late students. But they had to fulfill their end of the bargain, which meant taking responsibility for learning how to use the alarm and setting it so they woke up in time to get to school by 8 a.m.

"That's exactly what they did," Magden explains, estimating that she gave out about two dozen alarms last school year, some for students as young as third grade. "They were rarely tardy after that." Virtually all the students, she adds, are from single-parent homes; many of the parents work late and have their own morning struggles to get out of bed and into work on time.

With one exception--a mother who felt the school was intruding in her personal affairs by giving her daughter an alarm clock--the response was overwhelmingly positive from students and parents alike.

While alarm clocks are not expensive, it adds up when you start purchasing more than a few. Some private school students heard about the clocks and decided to start a service project to raise money and buy clocks for the school, so Magden didn't have to keep spending her own money.

Figuring out how to use the clocks correctly turned into a learning experience for some of the students. A couple of times, kids set them so early that they arrived way before the start of school. Others set them too late to arrive on time. Some forgot to turn the alarm back on for Monday morning. And others needed to learn that it won't work if you set the alarm for "p.m." rather than "a.m."

The alarms are less of a necessity this year because the school's starting time is now about an hour later. But, as Magden knows from experience, "If there's a way, they will come in late," no matter when school starts.

For other schools facing similar widespread tardiness, Magden suggests that this low-tech approach works better than notes home, phone calls and even truant officers. "We're always looking for ways to make a difference for the kids, and this was one way I saw where I could make a difference."