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Sandra Yi ReportingBeing late to class will now cost students at Lehi High School. The school has adopted a new policy to charge tardy students a fee.
Starting this week, if you're late to class, expect to pay $5 or go to attendance class early in the morning. But will this new policy work? We found out it depends on who you ask.
Sheldon Worthington: "Our intent is just to have kids in class on time."
But that's easier said than done.
Sheldon Worthington: "At the end of any class period when the tardy bell rings, we may have a couple hundred or more students still in the hallway after the bell rings."
Wesley Bolles, Sophomore: "School isn't all about just school. You're here to have fun and be here with your friends."
Now Lehi High School is targeting tardiness. At random periods teachers will lock their doors after the bell rings. Then kids who are late will have to pay $5 or go to attendance class at 6:30 in the morning. Administrators say the policy is working.
Sheldon Worthington: "In between classes, we play music and that music stops a minute before the bell rings. And now, when that music stops playing, kids are scurrying to class."
But maybe not everyone.
Nicky Liston, Junior: “I think that it just makes it so that kids don’t go to class.”
Welsley Bolles: "It's not going to make me go to class. It's a dumb thing. I don't know why they did it."
Students say some of their peers are even skipping part of the school day altogether.
Mckenzie Cattani, Junior: "They’re going to fine you five dollars so you might as well leave for half an hour so you don't get fined five dollars, and then come back to class."
Even some parents are upset. Dawn Willis has two kids at Lehi High School. She says if her kids are late, she pays the price.
Dawn Willis, Parent: "It comes out of my pocket. I already pay enough for them to go there. If they're late, they need to pay the consequence."
Willis would rather see teachers lower students' grades. Some kids agree, that would get them to class on time.
McKenzie Cattani: "Kids have the ability to choose. They can choose whether to be tardy. I think they have their own right to be tardy or not and they have to face the consequences."
Students with legitimate excuses will not be fined. In three days the school has handed out 30 fines. All the money collected will go to the student activities fund. Students will have to pay their fees before they register for classes.
