Patricia Cavala's school day had gotten off to a sluggish start. 
 
The 17-year-old said she had arrived just three minutes late at Roosevelt High School in 
East Los Angeles after missing the bus one morning. She was sent to the "tardy room" for 
the rest of the period, and instructed to write repeatedly: "I will not be late to school.... " 

Cavala was annoyed. Otherwise a good student who said she rarely misses class, she was 
scheduled to give a presentation on American heroes during first period history. So, she 
sneaked out of the tardy room and quietly slipped into her class for her project. 
 
The tardy punishment is "a waste of time," Cavala said. "You're not learning anything. 
It's like a gift. You're in the tardy room, so we'll let you sleep or talk to your friends." 
 
Complaints like hers are not uncommon from students, parents and teachers. As a result, 
the tardy room may soon be marked absent. 
 
Roosevelt is reevaluating the long-standing tradition of herding late students into a 
holding room for the remainder of the class period. Other schools have dropped the 
practice altogether, saying such policies allow students to fritter away instructional time 
in an era when schools are held accountable for pupils' performance and low test scores. 
The practice, its critics add, rewards bad behavior by allowing students to avoid classes 
or tests. 
 
"Having kids sequestered and removed from a class, and put in a place where they're not 
receiving an education, is entirely wrong," said Kathleen Lyons, a spokeswoman for the 
National Education Assn., a teachers union. She said other measures should be used, such 
as giving students detention during lunch or after school. 
 
Tardy rooms were noted as poor practice in state audit reports last year on five low- 
performing Los Angeles Unified high schools targeted for reforms: Roosevelt, Jefferson, 
Locke, Wilson and Fremont. Since then, Fremont and Wilson have closed their tardy 
rooms. 
 
Joining that trend over the last few years were Colton and Fontana high schools in San 
Bernardino County, Emery High School in the San Francisco Bay Area, Raymond Cree 
Middle School in Palm Springs, and other schools in Illinois and Texas. 
 
"With the new state accountability system and state standards, I want them in class. If 
they're tardy, they have to make up that time outside of class, on their own time," said 
Clarence Nolan, Raymond Cree principal. 
 
Nolan ended the 5-year policy two years ago. Now staff members are required to call 
parents or assign after-school detention for late students. 
 
An assistant principal at Lanphier High in Springfield, Ill., said budget cuts had forced 
the tardy room there to close this year, but she acknowledged that the change had been 
welcomed by some parents and students. When the tardy room was instituted two years 
ago, students organized a petition against it, and one student's father wrote a letter to the 
editor of the local newspaper stating that: "If he is five minutes late and will spend the 
day [at school] only to earn a zero, I will just keep him home for the day to do his 
homework.... I want him to go to college, but if he thinks high school is jail, I don't see 
college happening." 
 
Around the country, tardy rooms also go by other names, including "sweep rooms," 
"responsibility rooms" and "individualized supervised study rooms." Guidelines vary, but 
usually a staff member keeps an eye on students for the class period. Sometimes students 
are required to write essays, catch up on homework or copy sentences like "I will not be 
tardy" over and over. 
 
Many of Los Angeles Unified School District's 52 high schools have tardy rooms, 
including Washington Preparatory, Banning, Bell, Carson, Dorsey, Garfield, Huntington 
Park, Marshall, John Francis Polytechnic and Kennedy. 
 
But, in place of the tardy room this year, Wilson hired an attendance officer to visit the 
homes of chronically late or truant students; teachers and administrators now stand in 
doorways and hallways to make sure students get to class on time. Fremont has 
implemented a tardy policy that includes after-school detention, parent conferences and 
suspension for multiple offenders. 
 
Other audited schools in Los Angeles say they are revising their attendance procedures or 
reducing the number of students sent to the tardy room. 
 
"I don't believe in them," said Richard Alonzo, superintendent for local subdistrict F, 
which oversees some East Los Angeles schools, including Wilson. "I don't believe you 
punish students who are late to class by taking them out of class." He said the closing of 
the tardy room at Wilson would have happened eventually, even without the state audit. 
 
Ron Kendrick, a representative of United Teachers Los Angeles and an English teacher at 
Roosevelt, said he would rather have students in class, even if they are late, because 
otherwise they miss assignments and lessons, and slow down the rest of the class. 
 
"Why are the students in there? They just sit there and twiddle their thumbs," Kendrick 
said. "With our students' low scores and low achievement, we need to have them doing 
something more productive." 
 
Geri Herrera, director of school services for L.A. Unified's local district H, which 
oversees Roosevelt and a handful of other East Los Angeles schools, said the tardy room 
is being reviewed. 
 
"There may be no need for it in the future, but it is still up for discussion," she said. "This 
is the kind of practice we would like to see eliminated eventually, because we want 
instruction to be the first priority." 
 
There are better ways to handle the problem, said Kevon Wells, principal of the 3,400- 
student Alvin High School, southeast of Houston. Wells, who became principal this year, 
immediately closed the tardy room. 
 
"Tardy rooms were used by some as a means of getting out of a class," he said. 
 
Still, some administrators support corralling late students into tardy rooms as a way to 
manage excessive tardiness. 
 
Russ Thompson, principal of Leuzinger High in Lawndale, in the Centinela Valley Union 
High School District, said tardiness has decreased substantially in the last three years, 
since the school began sending late students into the "guidance room" for the rest of the 
class period and issuing a suspension after five offenses. 
 
"It's not our goal to keep students out of class," Thompson said. "Our first goal is to get 
them to be on time, and really get as much learning out of class as they can." 
 
Richard Bin, assistant principal at Garfield High School in Los Angeles, which has had a 
tardy room for three years, said: "When there is a tardy room, you see kids running to 
class. When there is no tardy room, you see students slowly taking their time. The biggest 
complaint we get is when students say, 'Why, if I am a few minutes late, do I have to 
miss a whole hour of class?' My answer to that is it's not fair for all students who are in 
class on time to have their instruction interrupted." 
 
At Jefferson High School near downtown, staff member Jesus Aguayo supervises the 
tardy room on most school days. Students must sit in every other chair. They are not 
supposed to talk or sleep and must do some work. 
 
But such requirements are rarely enforced, Aguayo conceded. He said he is usually too 
busy marking down which students missed their classes and filling out passes for them to 
prove they were in the tardy room. 
 
On a recent morning, 40 students lounged in the Jefferson cafeteria, which doubles as a 
tardy room. 
 
Three girls braided bracelets out of pink plastic strings. Clusters of students chatted and 
giggled in the back of the room. Two students slept with their heads resting on a lunch 
table, while other girls shared a bag of Cheetos. 
 
Assistant Principal Randall Klarin entered the cafeteria, marching between lunch tables. 
He hushed the crowd, separated students from their friends and announced to the carefree 
tardy group: "This is not a party." A girl rolled her eyes. The crowd quieted down, and 
the bell rang a few minutes later. 
 
Then five teenage boys, who simply didn't feel like going to class, waited for admittance 
to the tardy room. "Fifty percent are repeat offenders," said Aguayo. 
 
One boy plopped down and licked a green Popsicle. Another put his head down and went 
to sleep. 
 
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