Assistant Principal Scott Brennan said he believes a student’s attendance to school is very important and even arriving late is not sufficient to one’s education.

Consequently, there’s a number of students who arrive to school late on a daily basis.  They may be late for no reason; such as waking up late, arriving late after the bell, etc. However, there are circumstances that are considered acceptable which are known as “excused”. Meanwhile the average tardiness of Triton students is twelve per day and Brennan finds this to be a conflict.

“Losing class time and time with instruction is extremely important. So many times lessons are missed when one misses a class,” Said Brennan.

As this is a downfall to a student’s education, there are only few exceptions when not arriving to school as well as being late is looked at as an excuse. “A doctor’s appointment or a college visit is what is known as exceptional for being late to school,” said Brennan

Senior Jantina Nguyen discussed how her morning goes and what causes her to become late often.

“I’m usually late or I show up right as the bell rings because I take too long to get ready and the cars in front of me on the way to school drive very slowly,” said Nguyen.

As for Nguyen, she thinks the teachers may be unfair when arriving a few minutes to class after the bell. “Sometimes teachers need to realize that if students are a couple minutes late it might not be their fault. Even though often we can prevent being late, it’s usually other people driving slow or getting caught up at our lockers and being unable to make it to class on time,” added Nguyen.

Junior Lynn Wideberg agrees with Nguyen. Wideberg is late frequently because she relies on her cousin to bring her to school. Her morning process depends on another student to bring her. If her cousin is late, then that causes Wideberg to be late also.

“I think teachers are sometimes unfair when it comes to the circumstance of being late because most students drive to school and speeding is unsafe just to arrive to school on time,” Wideberg said.

“Also, absences can affect you when applying to college when they look at your attendance. Therefore, teachers should take that into consideration and take attendance at least 10 minutes after the bell,”said Wideberg.

Junior Mitchell Hopkinson who arrives to school on time thinks it is convenient to take the bus in the morning so he’s insured to arrive to school on time. “My mom typically wakes me up, along with my alarm. I have to wake up extra early in the morning just to catch the bus but the postive way to look at it is that I’m not missing class, and I arrive to my class on time everyday,” Hopkinson said.

“I get stressed out the very few times I’m late, which is very rare. That’s why I don’t mind the bus and I don’t have to rely on someone bringing me every morning. I can rely on myself,” added Hopkinson.

Depending on one’s morning routine, it is normally based off of how their morning goes as well as how early they set their alarm or get woken up. The biggest issue tends to be when students drive to school and leave their house too late to make it on time. The downfalls about being late are effects on your report card, getting assigned lunch duty as a punishment, missing class time and even applying to schools that may look at attendance.

Arrive on time to school, and students won’t have to worry about being late and dealing with these types of repercussions.