Guardians are notified by the school when their children are caught in a tardy sweep. Photo by: Isabella Fierros

VHS has enacted a new tardy sweep policy

On March 22, a tardy sweep was conducted for the first time in the school year during third period. VHS admin chose to conduct the tardy sweeps in order to address the over 1,000 tardies in the month of January. 

Although that was the first tardy sweep of this school year, there have been tardy sweeps in previous school years.

Assistant Principal Christina Dorso said, “There have been tardy sweeps conducted with the past administration. Not sure of how and what the parameters were. Post [COVID-19], Mrs. Rodriguez wanted us to take it back to [the] basics in reacclimating everyone to school rules, expectations and policies. Despite our ongoing interventions to improve school-wide attendance, we are now at the point of conducting random tardy sweeps.”

Here’s how it works: Prior to the tardy sweep, teachers are informed and asked to lock their doors after the second bell rings. Students that do not make it to class in time are asked to meet with tardy sweep team members, who assign them a tardy pass through Minga. After they are assigned their tardy pass, they are allowed to return to class where the teacher uses Minga to “re-admit” them back into class. 

Students that are caught by administrators in a tardy sweep are required to attend one lunch detention to clear their record. Lunch detention takes place in the cafeteria. Students walk in and scan a QR code in order to show that they were there.

Tiffany Sax ‘25 said, “I was tardy once to second period, but I just served the lunch detention, no big deal. I definitely don’t want to be late to school again.”

Juliana Coronado ‘26 said, “We go to lunch detention and just sit there and do nothing, there’s no point in handing [lunch detentions] out if we [can] sit there [and do things that] we can do outside of lunch detention.”

The data gained from the random tardy sweeps is collected through the Minga system, which is then used by staff to issue consequences to those who have been tardy multiple times and to analyze the school’s attendance progress. According to Dorso, tardy sweeps will continue until the school reaches under 100 tardies per day.