One high thinks it's got a solution for late students who claim a lack of alarm clocks. With roughly 250 commonly tardy students, Marshalltown High School in Iowa wants is sending out a "wake-up" call for students to arrive on time. That's the idea anyway.
Any Marshalltown student who's has been repeatedly tardy to first class period -- at least five or more times in the past three months since March -- is slated for an actual wake-up call Monday through Friday, between 6:30 a.m. and 6:45 a.m.
The Iowa school's dean of students says the idea came from a Marshalltown counselor. And the school believes it's the only one using the method. It is a rather unique response to an excuse that runs rampant among late arrivers: the claim, among repeatedly tardy students, that they don't own an alarm clock.
The district's automated calling system will check in with routinely late students before 7 a.m. with a peppy message: "Good morning from Marshalltown High School. It's time to get up and enjoy the day."
That perky greeting also reminds students when first period begins -- just in case they couldn't get that time ingrained during the first three-quarters of the year.
"If we can get them [students] out of bed and into [Marshalltown] school then it will work," claims the Iowa high school's dean of students Lisa Wunn.
The Marshalltown High School wake-up call program was actually slated to start before May but had an inexplicable delay.
Ironically, the wake-up call program itself was tardy to arrive -- so the program will pick up next fall.