With the start of the new year brings new opportunities and responsibilities. For juniors and seniors, the opportunity to take dual-credit classes at Stephen F. Austin State University is on the table. While this is a great privilege for many students, they do not have enough time to get from campus to campus.
The set timing for dual credit classes in the morning is from 8 a.m. to 9:15 a.m. Students have to be back on the high school campus by 9:30 a.m. for their next period. This is way too short of a time period. Traffic on SFA’s campus takes time to get out of, leaving students with around, or under, ten minutes to report to class. Add on additional traffic stops, and there may be little to no time left remaining. The lack of time has caused students to arrive late, even when they tried every way to get to class on time.
So what might be a good thing for the school to do for these students? The tardy bell rings at 9:35 a.m., which still may not be enough time for some students. So rather than put stress on students to speed to get to class, the school needs to extend the tardy period for certain students. Office administrators could get a list of students who go to the dual-credit classes, and inform teachers to not mark them tardy until an extended time. This would allow for students to not panic or drive hurriedly, as they would know that they have more time given to them.
To recap, students taking dual-credit classes simply do not have enough time to reach the high school campus without frequently being counted tardy, which adds up over time to become unexcused absences. To solve this problem, school administrators should give these students extended time to get to school, making them not worry about being counted late. This way, the problem could be solved in a simple but effective manner.