On Monday, Jan. 15, Lake Brantley officially introduced its very own Hero: a tardy and dress code tracking system. The system requires students who arrive late to class to make their way to the nearest participating office or security guard to have their tardy recorded in the system, where the student is then given a pass to class.

Lake Brantley is not the only local school to adopt the new system system of processing tardies. Locally, Seminole High School, Hagerty High School, and Lyman High School have implemented the system. The Hero system intends to regulate and discourage tardiness by enforcing set punishments for students.

“There were too many students tardy to class, interrupting instructional time when they came in late,” assistant principal Colleen Windt said. “There was no sense of urgency for students to get to class.”

Over time, the recorded tardies accumulate and students will receive punishments depending on the number of tardies they have received, ranging from just a warning to a referral. While students may claim that the punishments are too harsh for the offences, the consequences have been in effect for years although they have not always been enforced.

“The biggest problem with tardies is that we had a policy in place, but it put so much time and pressure on the teachers to make all the calls and referrals,” AP Psychology and AP European History teacher Shawna Resnick said. “I would rather be working with students or making lesson plans than do that.”

While the Hero system is encouraging some students to be on time more often, not all students are ecstatic about what the new system means for their attendance. The system tracks total tardies, regardless of which classes students are tardy for. However, tardies and punishments reset at the end of each quarter.

“Hero is unnecessary and will only create more absences in class,” sophomore Jessica Lara said. “Waiting to get a Hero pass makes students miss more minutes of class, which defeats the purpose of the system. It just adds more stress for students.”

There have been hiccups and mishaps along the road to fully integrating the Hero tardy system, but administration and teachers have worked to minimize any incidents. Since the system was implemented, campus tardies have decreased, thus creating fewer classroom interruptions.

“Implementation of the Hero model has led to an amazing transformation of school tardies. Tardies have decreased ten-fold,” Windt said. “Period absences has slightly risen but that will taper off as students know that it is worse to get credit denial in a class as opposed to a detention for being tardy.”