Parents being charged for tardy kids

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1

$3000.00 dollars in fines for missing a total of less than 3 hours of school since September (the combined amount of minutes tardy each day they were late), but they WERE late 85 days this school year. What do you all think? In case you haven't heard of this, I'm posting a link in So What Happened.

These are not the only people I've heard this happening to recently. Love to hear everyone's take on this.

I can clearly understand both sides of the argument here...

Amanda H. brings up something very interesting to the issue!

2

I'm not even going to bother following the link because I'm sure it would piss me off and I'm sure I wouldn't clearly understand "the other side" of the argument. Just from your own first paragraph, I think that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard of.

3

I think if the parents can't make sure their kids are at school on time, then they should be fined.

My kids are all to school on time every day. If they were ever late, then it's because of extenuating circumstances.

I think parents should get one tardy a semester for those extenuating circumstances...after the first tardy, then the parents should charged.

4

From the point of view of the parent who gets the kids to school on time, good for the school district! I have had to deal with my son having detentions because his father is too lazy to get his ass out of bed with enough time to get my kids to school on time! How fair is that, he is twelve! He gets a detention and his father gets nothing. Nah, his father loves his money more than anything else, take away what he really cares for, maybe he will get up earlier.

Oh this would be his father, my ex husband. The only reason why my daughter gets to school on time is her's starts 45 minutes after her brother, otherwise detentions would be a family affair. I had to go to school and fight for my son because it was excessive enough to hold him back a grade. Why should the kids pay for lazy parents?

5

Ok, taking legal action that will cost the father his license (to practice law) is excessive, but it sounds like they have no excuse for their children to be habitually late like that.

6

I'm not sure what I think about the fine, but if I were one of these kid's teachers, I'm sure I'd be royally pissed that this kid came late all the time and interrupted my class! I've got to believe the school tried talking with these parents more than once before they took this tact.

7

I'm sure some sort of action should be taken in this case - whether it be a fine or otherwise. I agree whole heartedely that tardiness does indeed disturb the flow of the classroom. The mom is a stay-at-home mom, they live only blocks away, how do they manage to be late that many times. My daughter has to be up 2 hours before school starts to catch a bus and has never been late. A few days per year late is fine. You can account for that but 85 times. That is excessive and sets a bad precedent overall.

8

85 days tardy this year equates to being tardy about 80% of the time by my quick guesstimate and they did it last year too. Now hopefully the stupid, lazy parents will get their young children to school on time. Works for me. I see it as tardy parents being charged for tardy parents.

9

I think that's overkill. One commenter on USAToday said 2 children were late 29 times and 1 child 27 times, so not 85 times each. If that's true, it takes away some of the shock factor. I don't know why they are late that often, but a parent losing their ability to practice law because their children missed less than 3 hours of school is absurd. The dad's a lawyer, so I'm sure he will be able to argue his way out of this one.

10

I don't know why they can't get their kids to school on time. They are setting a bad example and they are making their children think its ok to be late and to waste peoples time. So I think they deserve the fine.

11

I think it's great! Tardy children are disruptive to an entire class and the teaching process. Tardy children also require additional staff work such as security, attendance staff, etc... Tardy students also often are disruptive in the hallways. If the child was tardy a couple of times then that is a different story but 85 days! That is almost every day for an entire semester. I am not so sure about the amount as that does seem extremely high, that is about $35 a day. I would find that hard to believe. $5 a day would be more reasonable. Schools charge $10 to replace an ID or $5 to send a transcript to a college. Being on time to school teaches a life-long lesson. Would a president of a company want an employee being tardy 85 times in a 6 month time period? No, they would be fired. School is the job.

12

Interesting.... the mom is a SAHM.......... she is the one at fault for not getting the kids there on time!

Over the last 2 years, the kids have been late 150 times...... I don't care if it is just a minute or two, that just shows a lot of disrespect by the mother for what the school is trying to do.

I don't care that she has 3 kids under 10.......... I have 4 kids, and the first 3 were born within 4 years.... so when we moved to Texas, I had one in Kindergarten, one in 3rd grade, and 1 in 4th grade...... I also had a baby under a year old! I had 4 kids under 9......... I had to get them up and ready, also.

If they let one parent off for that many tardies, why should they expect ANYONE to show up on time? Rules are established for a reason.

13

I live a "few blocks" from our elementary school. My son has been tardy only once this year. I also either walk him over or drive him.

Is it always easy to get my 3 kids out the door on time? No, some days are more challenging than others. Do we do it anyway? Yes.

I say - get your kids to school on time. I am not seeing a reason they are late... there is no traffic if you walk to school.

14

Honestly, there's no excuse for this family. The punishment is extreme, but so is the behavior. They were late 150 days in 1.5 years? That's more than half of the time. This just shows a flagrant disregard for others. Every late child is a disruption to the teacher and all of other other students in each class. I'm sure they were given ample warning. I hope they get nailed with the whole fine.

My kids are often just making the bell but are only actually tardy maybe 5 times a year and even that's excessive and inexcusable.

15

Dad's an attorney. Mother is a stay at home mom. They live a few blocks from the school and the kids have been late 150 times over the last two years.
Dad makes it sound like it's no big deal because it's not like they're tardy without their parents knowledge. Really? The 3 kids are all under 10 years old. Why can't they be at school on time?

As a single, working mom with 2 kids 10 years apart, my kids were tardy MAYBE 2 times in an entire year. They often got awards for perfect attendance.

In this case, the tardies are so excessive that the parents are being criminally charged for it and the $3,000 is the amount of possible fines.
I'm sorry, but maybe this will give the parents a clue that the kids need to be at school on time. Parents all over this country manage it.
"It's only a couple minutes here and a couple of minutes there".
What the hell kind of argument is that? 150 TIMES????

School isn't drop-in daycare. There is a bell for a reason.
Sometimes life really sucks, but hopefully we raise children who can grow up to be at school on time, at work on time, get bills paid on time, finish projects on time. Get their KIDS to school on time.

This is just my opinion.
The family obviously has issues of some kind.
Either that, or it hasn't seemed important to them until now.

16

I read about this... the kids are consistently late 2-3 days a week. That is just deplorable, and it is teaching the kids very little about punctuality, prioritizing, time management and respect for others. The mom leaves 8 minutes drive time for a school that is 10 mins away. She is late getting them out the door, b/c she is going over their homework with them or doing their hair fancy in the mornings. It's not the kids who are dallying around in the hallways.

17

I can understand both sides to this, but overall, get it together. How hard is it to get your kids to school on time. This mom is teaching her kids to be irresponsible and disrespectful of other peoples time. I think the fines are reasonable but I don't like the idea of the dad losing his license to practice law over the whole thing.

I am a little curious as to whether or not the parents received warnings ahead of time. My guess is that they did. But, ultimately, they were responsible for getting the kids there either way.

18

I haven't read the article, but having a complicated situation with getting my son to school on time, I would probably be more sympathetic than most.

For most of this year, we had my son ride the bus. They let him take the bus even though we live really close because he's in special ed. It worked great because he had to be ready on time or they would leave without him. He was almost never late, except a couple times I didn't hear the bus coming, and they drove away without honking. But we worried that he wasn't eating enough breakfast and was losing weight.

Then we switched to driving him to school, giving him 10 more minutes of sleep and 25 more minutes to eat. After a couple of weeks, I found out that he had been late almost every single day! The teachers hadn't told me, and my son isn't able to tell if he is late. Although we'd been dropping him off at the door with all the other kids, he would stop on the way and pick up crayons in the grass, or go to the resource teacher instead of homeroom, or walk too slow. So now my husband parks at the front door(which is probably against the rules) and walks him all the way to the classroom, and then calls and tells me what time they got there.

I don't know which counts as being more responsible- being lazy and sending him on the bus on time, or working 3 times harder and having him get there late.

19

I think this is justified. If his children were in my childs class and came in late 85 times since September I'd think of it this way. They are disrupting the class and STEALING time from my childs education. That would be about $100 a kid for the hours they've lost of class time for the disruption, sounds fair to me There sense of entitlement is outrageous and will not serve their child well when as one of the responses at the site to the story mentioned. What will happen when they have a job and are late than many times? IF there are valid extenuating circumstances as some of the posters here have I would hope the school would work with them on an individual basis, accomadating all involved.

20

Well, the way I read it, it is an average of 27/28 days per child, out of about 7 months of school... so, 25 weeks of school (after subtracting for Xmas and Thanksgiving)? That is about 1 day per week.

That is too much. But, I have had my kids in schools that the clocks are different in every classroom and different from the front office. (No centralized bell system---it was private school). I never knew for SURE what time they got to school (the office clock would be different from day to day). One kid would be late, one would have spare time---and they went in at the same time. But, I didn't know one kid was late until the progress reports came out...no one said, "Hey, your daughter is late to school" and I was at the school a lot as a volunteer. And it was the same thing at the end of the day: they were supposed to get out at "x" time, but they never came out then... there was a delay... some days it was 2 minutes, some days it was 10 minutes... with no explanation. Maybe the kids took too long for their last trip to the bathroom as they were lined up to exit the building... ? Or maybe the class rooms weren't operating on the same time.

Drove me crazy really.

My husband operates on GMT at work, and his watch and car are set to the exact time based on his work. My watch says something different. It matches what I hear on the radio every day. My car too. The school (office) had a totally different time than either of us. And sometimes that would change (either earlier or later)... with no warning.

Now, I don't know what the situation is where the kids in the article were in school---in Washington and he's a lawyer, so I suppose it could be a private school? Did they notify the parents that the kids weren't making it on time? Does their contract with the school specify the penalty for tardiness? If the answers are yes to both, then as long as they are following the terms of the contract, fine away.

And yes, I get that it can be disruptive to the teacher and class... though I have never been in a single class (except in college) that the teacher was actually starting anything the moment the bell rang. But charging the parents with a misdemeanor, did I read that in the article? As what? Child neglect? I can think of a LOT worse ways of neglect. I'm betting those kids ate a healthy breakfast at home, had clean and weather appropriate clothes on, and had their homework done and with them.

I just don't think there was enough information in the article to be fair to both sides, particularly in light of how they try to make the tardies appear even worse than they are by making it sound like all the kids were late 85 times EACH, which is not the case.

ETA: Just wanted to add a note, after reading the other responses so far--
I find it interesting how many ladies have zero tolerance and no compassion whatsoever on any level about how rude this is to the rest of the class or the teacher and assert what horrible things this is teaching their children about respecting others. (even though, we are not talking about them coming in 15 or even 10 minutes late.... they said it was 2-3 minutes late most of those times--so no way their teachers are having to reteach any lessons, I can guarantee)--- in comparison to how many people (not just on the most recent thread, but others I've seen on this board in the past) think it is just fine and have no issue with not getting around to responding to an RSVP, because "it happens sometimes, people get busy" or "cut the mom some slack she knows she should have responded", etc. Very interesting.