After going all first semester with no system in place for tracking student tardies and HHT assignments, Blue Valley Northwest introduced Student Conductor to the student body at the start of the second semester.

BVNW’s old system, Tardy Tracker, had stopped working at the end of the last school year and was shut down. Principal Amy Pressly heard that Blue Valley High was trying out a new system called Student Conductor that was working for them. BVNW administrators looked into the new system and decided to try Student Conductor as well, Pressly said. 

Student Conductor works similarly to the old system Tardy Tracker, Pressly said. Once a student arrives late to class, Pressly said, the teacher is to send the student to get a late pass from the station set up in the attendance office. The Student enters their ID into a computer that then prints out a receipt with the number of tardies that student has had. Once a student is late to class three times, the student must spend a Husky Halftime in the ISS room, a system that is called sidelines. 

As of now, there is only one station set up in the front office, Pressly said, however the administration does plan to add more stations.

“I have learned when you try to implement too many pieces and parts that are moving simultaneously, that it doesn’t work,” Pressly said.

Along with the the new tardy system, Student Conductor is able to allow teachers to assign students to Husky Halftime when a students is needed to do extra work outside of class. 

History and Economics teacher, Rob Meacham, often uses the new Student Conductor system to set up a Husky Halftime session with a student, as well as to help track student tardies. Meacham found the system easy to use and said it did not take long. 

“Basically, we have the program through the staff Canvas page and on the front page you can search for students to assign,” Meacham said. “The student and their parents will get an email of why they are coming and what they will be working on.”  

The lack of stations in the school is one part of the new system, senior Sean Dunning, finds frustrating. 

“I had to walk all the way across the school to get a piece of paper and by the time I got back I had actually missed more than I thought I would,” Dunning said. 

With the new system in place, it has left many students frustrated in how it is set up. As Dunning headed into his last semester of his senior year, he found that Student Conductor may have a flaw to it. 

“I found it a little bit frustrating because I felt like it would have been a little bit more productive if the teacher could have just entered it from her computer, instead of me walking all the way across the school to get a piece of paper,” Dunning said. 

Dunning is not the only student whose had frustration with the new system. After showing up late to class due to long bathroom lines, sophomore Trey Torrez was sent to Student Conductor to get a late pass. After being sent to the station over an issue he said he did not have total control over, Torrez feels teachers may need to be more understanding of the matter. 

“I feel like the system does have some flaws,” Torrez said “It could be up to the teachers’ discretion whether they send them down to get a slip or not.”

Just as the students, Meacham sees flaws in the new system. However, he feels that the system as a whole will have a positive effect. 

“With the Husky Halftime thing there is a lot of steps that you have to take to assign a kid,” Meacham said. “I think the positives outweigh the negatives. There’s always gonna be holes, but we need something in place.”

Pressly has heard the different complaints from students and is working with the staff to fix some of the issues students have noticed, she said.   

“I did have one teacher ask me if they can mark stuudents late because every teacher has a student conductor account,” Pressly said.“I’m gonna have one teacher try to see how it works and does that work in a way that’s manageable.”