No-Go List

As a means to prevent student tardies and unexcused absences, Sierra Vista High School implemented the new No-Go list policy. If a student receives more than six tardies and eight unexcused absences, the student will be placed on the No-Go List.

Ms. Angel Toner, assistant principal at the Student Success Office, explains the consequences the students will get if they go tardy, “The students that are tardy four times will get three lunch detentions, five tardies is in-house, and if a student has six or more tardies, they will receive a Required Parent Conference, listed on the No-Go list, and will be required to attend Saturday school. Currently, 654 students are on the No-Go list.”

Students who are listed on the No-Go list will be required to attend Saturday classes to make up for missed class time. Toner explains their routine, “Students check in at 8:00 AM to 12:00 PM, and we break it into sessions to keep them moving and not bored. We first talk about why they are there. We do have everyone to introduce themselves, it is a part of working on social skills. Next, we have the students pull up their grades and check the grades to see what missing assignments they have. After checking student grades, the students will create an action plan, and work on that action plan with the teacher, assistant principal, and a campus monitor there. We break students into groups, or they can work individually. There is another session they can go to, in this session we talk about hot topics, current events, and drugs on how those have an impact on them. They go back to another session of working on their missing school work and if they are all caught up on their school work, they can participate in campus beautification.”

Even after being on the No-Go List, some students still continue being tardy. Toner explains,  “We continue with progressive discipline and they can earn themselves another spot on the no-go list. We are actually resetting and we are going to make our tardy policy stricter because there are just too many students wandering the halls and not taking the consequences seriously. The reason for the new policy is because students are missing instructional time which has an impact on their learning and it impacts the teacher and the other students who are trying to work.”

Students and teachers reacted to the new No-Go list policy. Eleventh grader Mikayla Calamayan thinks that the No-Go list is a fair policy, “I think that the No-Go list is a fair system or method used to reduce the amount of tardy students and that it would work.”

Tenth grader Haelee Wolfe thinks that the No-Go list would help to have less tardy students, “The No-Go list would be definitely help to have less tardies for students if they want to attend dances or events, so I like the No-Go list.”

Mr. Justin Chomintra shares his comments on the No-Go list policy, “I think the No-Go list is a great disincentivizing policy. Many students are tardy because they are hanging out with their friends and taking too much time socializing during the passing period. I do not think of a better way to stop that behavior than disallowing them to attend school events where their friends might be.”

The No-Go List helps the students to keep them away from being tardy because they know that there will be a consequence. It also helps the school to have less students who are wandering around school during class time.