Every new school year is an opportunity to implement new changes to improve our school, and this year is no different.
This 2024-2025 school year started on Aug. 20 with the introduction of new Principal, Dr. Manoj Mahindrakar, an Aliso alumni. Mahindrakar replaces Mr. Hatcher who has new duties within the district.
New zones, phone and tardy policies have been instituted to help our school achieve academic success.
The new zone policy has many students wondering why they have to wear a brightly colored vest when they go out to use the restroom or anywhere on campus. These neon vests are an important indicator of which zone students are supposed to be in. The zones coincide with classroom locations.
If staff sees a student wearing the wrong color vest in a given zone, the student will be given a warning and be sent back to class. This new rule is to prevent students from wandering around during class time and to hopefully keep disruptions to a minimum around the school.
Assistant Principal Mrs. Hosseini states, “The more students are in the classroom with the teacher, the more likely they are to be successful.”
Students are also not allowed to leave the classroom within the first and last 20 minutes of class time.
Another big change is the school-wide “phone spas”. The spas are numbered phone pockets given to each teacher to hang in their classroom. Students are to place their phones in the pockets at the beginning of class, and then retrieve them at the end of the period. Some teachers had phone pockets in prior years, but now the policy is school-wide.
Some have complained about the policy, but most and thankful for school-wide implementation.
Recent studies show that schools who remove phones during class resulted in students paying more attention and succeeding at a higher rate. Consequently, schools across the United States have started to implement this policy and begun to see success.
Our tardy policy has also returned after seeing success. If a student is late for class, the teacher gives them a tardy slip upon arrival and students are required to attend lunchtime detention.
Students that have excused tardies still need to visit the attendance window prior to arriving at class. Students with multiple tardies, find themselves on a progressive discipline track that involves accelerated consequences and could lead to an expulsion.
The tardy policy has seen huge success since its introduction. In the 2021-2022 school year Aliso had the second-highest tardy rate in the district with a total of 37,964 tardies. But just the next year our school had a decrease of 19,817 or a drop of 52 percent bringing our total to 18,147.
Last year experienced another great decrease in tardies dropping by 39 percent or 7,083 to a total of just 11,064. Another great addition from a couple of years ago is the two-minute bell that reminds students that they need to start going to class, which has helped in decreasing tardiness.
Tyler Bird (11) shared, “The addition of the two-minute bell has helped me tremendously on getting on time because during the passing period, I always lose track of time and the bell tells me when to get to class.”
Every school in our district has had significant improvements in tardiness due to the new policies implemented.
“Most kids do what they are supposed to do and they are compliant and they are here to learn”, says Assistant Principal Mrs. Hosseini.
