Opinion: Does it Work to Fine Parents for Picking Up Kids Late?

In Mexico, the national conversation related to recent tragic events has brought up issues that many parents would consider extreme, such as taking sanction measures against all parents who fail to comply with school dismissal times and arrive late to pick up their children. This is, undoubtedly, an attempt to improve safety conditions for children and young students in schools, but are these measures effective? Or is it a reactionary measure that attacks a symptom but fails to consider the entire problem?

Much of the upheaval stems from the fact that in Mexico, similar measures have never been implemented nationwide. However, in countries such as the United States, England, and Australia, punitive protocols have already been put in place to reduce the lack of punctuality of parents when picking up their children. Before considering such options, it would be important to review how these have worked in the countries that have already implemented them.

Australia: If parents arrive late, they receive a fine (or report)

One of the most popular “solutions” to address the late arrival times of parents who pick up their children at school is to establish a system of fines or reports to the corresponding family services organization. An independent school in Australia called Al Siraat College, began fining $10 per child for every extra 15 minutes the student remained at the premises after the school day ended. The school’s director of operations, Leah Hamel, reports that the measure has significantly reduced parental untimeliness.

The measure was put in place to deal with cases where unpunctuality had become a pattern, posing a potential safety risk for children whose parents consistently arrived late by a margin wider than 15-minutes. This security protocol also considers eventualities beyond parents’ control. In these cases, parents can call in advance to communicate a legitimate reason why they would arrive late, and the school will not charge the fee for lateness. This flexibility about not enforcing the responsibility of arriving on time to provide space for the needs of parents with particular circumstances could be partly why this measure has been successful.

England: A question of budget

The first mission of every school is to educate, but this can’t be achieved if the safeguarding of the physical, emotional, and psychological integrity of the students is not fulfilled. Students need the cognitive and personal development that is supposed to happen in educational spaces, but what happens when there are no resources to continue fulfilling this purpose when the exit bell rings?

This problem is global. Denise Gibbs-Naguar, director of the Holy Trinity Church of England Primary School, in Gravesend (England), pointed out more precisely how the dynamic works from schools. The main issue to attend when a child has to stay late after school is: resources, which must be used to pay for the overtime employee who will take care of students and the funds that would be invested in keeping the facilities open.

“When this happens, a staff member has to be paid extra time to supervise the children; the school cannot sustain this cost constantly without impacting the other areas of the school budget and, therefore, the education of the children,” says Gibbs-Naguar. The principal also explains that in addition to the costs of maintaining an extended schedule, there are also consequences for the children, who show signs of anxiety and stress by not knowing where their parents are or why they were delayed.

However, the fines, reports, and the involvement of family service agencies are protocols that are put in place after the problem has already happened. By then, only the game of “distributing” or “defining” responsibilities remains. But there are also preventive measures and programs to carry out activities in school after school hours. The problem? Many of these programs are too expensive.

Mexico and the United States: Extended schools

One option created to narrow the gap in learning quality among low-income classes could now be one of the most optimal security solutions to avoid long periods between the dismissal time and the arrival of the parents to find their children. Mexican full-time or extended schools emerged in 2007. About 441 institutions were the first participants in the Full-Time Schools Program, which offered 8-hour shifts, expanding everyday core school activities, including extracurricular activities and on-campus food services. By 2012, the program already had 6 thousand schools; in 2016, it totaled more than 25 thousand, a figure that is maintained through the 2019-2020 cycle.

Rigoberto Guevara Vázquez, Secretary-General of Section 30 of the National Workers’ Union of Tamaulipas, Mexico, leads the effort to expand full-time schools in their region. Guevara believes that the implementation of full-time schools would be the right solution on various fronts. Extending school hours would help improve the quality of learning, reduce safety risks for parents whose schedules do not match those of school, and promote a full 8-hour workday for teachers, making it easier for them to have better work benefits.

However, full-time schools are also lacking in resources. Starting in the 2020 cycle, in Mexico, these schools will have 56% less budget for equipment. In the United States, after-school programs are also under attack. The Trump administration has tried numerous times to propose budget cuts that would seriously affect the operational capacity of these programs. This year, just two months after Congress approved the distribution of $1.2 trillion to extracurricular educational programs, Trump’s team again proposed to reduce their funds.

Mexico takes serious measures: Calling family services

Many parents see one of the most popular resources to avoid late arrivals at the end of school hours as a somewhat extreme measure. This measure is to call family services when parents are late.

In Mexico, school policies are clear: the educational staff is not legally obliged to stay in schools after dismissal time. From the points of view of educational institutions and the apparatus of government, there is not a shared responsibility. Local and national officials are already beginning to take steady steps to prevent that children whose pare
nts are delayed remain on public roads. Luis Arturo Cornejo Alatorre, Secretary of Education of the State of Morelos, reported that actions to protect students from situations of insecurity and violence would be carried out on all elementary schools. Children whose parents arrive 20 to 30 minutes late will be turned over to the DIF (National System for Integral Family Development).

The protocol proposed by these officials may seem harsh and simplistic, but there is a reason why schools are unable to extend their schedules to coincide with late parental arrivals when these are frequent. The educational institutions and authorities have the resources to implement measures to protect the security of the children if parents are late at departure time, but not for the prevention and development of strategies to attack the problem before it presents itself.

We need to build a community that ensures the protection and continuous education of students. For that, it is necessary to allocate resources to design preventive measures, to create programs that focus on the safety of children, and initiatives to close the time gap between the end of the school day and the time when parents can arrive for their children.

Disclaimer: This is an Op-ed article. The viewpoints expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, and official policies of Tecnológico de Monterrey.

Sofía García-Bullé

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This article from Observatory of the Institute for the Future of Education may be shared under the terms of the license CC BY-NC-SA 4.0