START on Time! a great start to school year

Come to Wasilla Middle School and wait for the one-minute warning bell.

The two-toned, four-chime sends kids scurrying to classrooms. Students abandon jammed lockers and even friends to get to class before louder in-class one-tone, two-chime sounds. The one or two students left in the hall are swept up by assigned teachers and escorted to the office for an official tardy pass back to class. Within the five-minute passing period, about 800 middle-schoolers safely travel between classes across one of the largest campuses in the district without incident. It is called START on Time!, and it is something to see.

“I love it! I didn’t realize the unintended benefits of the order it creates in the hallways. It is awesome to have a classroom full of kids a minute before the bell rings!” said Jeff Blackburn, a seventh-grade math teacher, said of the initiative.

Randy Sprick, founder of Safe and Civil Schools, developed START on Time! for secondary schools. Much of what Sprick writes establishes clear, consistent messages for behavior that all students can understand. His approach eliminates the cultural divide where most students have all of the tools to succeed and others don’t.

Sprick’s approach pays attention to statistics relating troubled behavior to tardies. Students regularly tardy to class are also the students being bullied, or being the bully. Tardy students more frequently fail classes or disengage from learning all together. I call them the kids in the margins. All the other students fit nicely on the page, but the margin kids either squeeze onto the page, or get so close to the edge you can’t read them anymore.

Frankly, before START on Time! I didn’t believe Wasilla Middle School had a tardy problem. But then again, I am a tardy problem all by myself. So why would I think being late was a problem? However, I was wrong. I now recognize our margins left in the hallway. These kids could indeed become the kids disengaging, unmotivated to attend and in trouble most of the time.

At the end of Wednesday, the second day of official tardy record keeping, 84 students had been tardy to class. That translates to four students late to class per grade level, per class period. The amount seemed high to me with such vacant halls. I cringe to think of how many students had been marginalized each period before we began START on Time!

Each tardy slip needs to be filed and documented. After three tardies, parents receive a letter and phone call home; after four, the student receives lunch-room detention. The consequences continue to build until eight tardies, with an in-school suspension.

“Right now, it [record-keeping] consumes my day,” said office secretary Kami Williams. “But, that will get better with time. The main thing is that the kids are getting to class on time, so it’s worth it.”

Not only are the students in class on time, but they are neat about it. The halls are noticeably cleaner between classes. The students have naturally become more efficient with their belongings as well as their time.

Andy Dwyer, seventh-grade geography teacher, summed up START on Time! Best: “Now the order in the classroom carries into the hall, rather than the chaos in the hallways carrying over into the classroom.”

Emily Forstner teaches Language Arts at Wasilla Middle School.