Tardiness

I came across the Shop Talk article recently regarding when tardiness constitutes misconduct (Aug. 15) and was disappointed in the advice. While it is difficult to show, to the satisfaction of the Employment Development Department, that an excessive tardiness problem is "willful" misconduct, there are ways to prove misconduct. A properly documented final incident is essential to prove misconduct for excessive tardiness. If the employee states that the tardiness was caused by a horrible freeway accident, for example, the EDD will almost always determine that there was no "willful" misconduct.

The Los Angeles Police Department has agreed to avoid ticketing tardy students who are on their way to school, lawyers and advocates for students announced Thursday. The tickets, which carry steep fines, are exactly the wrong method for achieving better attendance, said those involved. Under new and "clarified" procedures agreed to by the LAPD at the request of advocates for students, truancy sweeps will no longer occur during the first hour of classes. And daytime curfew sweeps cannot be conducted except in response to suspected criminal activity by youths in the sweep area.

Our readers wrote letters throughout 1992, expressing their viewpoints on a variety of issues. Here are condensed versions of some of those letters to help us remember the events that mattered to Orange County readers this past year. We would like to thank the readers who took the time to share their views, and we look forward to hearing from them and others in 1992. Locking students out of classrooms as a cure for tardiness? How desperate, how uninspired, how adversarial and punitive.

That necessity is the mother of invention is nowhere more evident than in science fiction, where invention regularly breaks the bounds of what's possible in order to accomplish what's necessary. ( If we reverse the polarity on the atomic thruster terminals, Captain, maybe we can get this microwave oven started again .) In the case of the long-running sci-fi adventure series " Doctor Who," a cult hit here and a national phenomenon at home in the U.K., the practical matter of replacing the lead actor inspired what has become the hallmark of the series, and of the character: The Doctor dies, then regenerates: the same man but different; a different man, but the same.

Re "The Price of Hooky," editorial, July 27: As a first-year teacher in a Los Angeles Unified School District high school, not just hooky but tardiness was an epidemic problem. Administrators tell you that you cannot link attendance to grades. Attendance problems may be addressed in the citizenship section of students' grades, which is virtually meaningless to students. But when a student aces all of his or her tests and registers 22 absences and 37 tardies by the semester break, is the student really entitled to that A?

It was inevitable, I suppose, that after boasting about my punctuality I would turn up late somewhere. It is my nature, as I said, to be on time for every event, an attitude that I learned first from my YMCA basketball coach, and have since had reinforced by the Marine Corps and the newspaper business, neither of which accepts any excuse for tardiness.

A 14-year-old boy has been charged with shooting his grandparents to death in an argument about his tardiness at school, authorities said. After the boy got a letter from school about his chronic tardiness, his grandfather confronted him, Logan County State's Atty. Timothy J. Huyett said Friday. "The boy thought it was insulting and got the gun," Huyett said.

We attacked the start of first grade with military precision. Up at 6:15, with pretty purple dress at the ready. Pancake served, teeth brushed, sandals cinched -- with time to spare. We were a Swiss watch. But this isn't Switzerland. The school bus didn't arrive at 7:20, as scheduled. Or at 7:30. Or 7:45. The van finally pulled up at 7:54. But the driver gave no sign anything was wrong. She was all grins and big waves, as pleased as if she'd nailed an especially difficult dismount.

Airline travel fees - including charges to check a bag and to board early - have become so prevalent that travelers almost need an advanced degree in mathematics to calculate overall trip costs. Last year at least 36 airline fees increased, and 16 others were redefined, bundled or unbundled with other services, according to a recent study by the consumer travel website Travelnerd. One bright spot in the Travelnerd study of 14 U.S. airlines is that most fee increases were only $5 to $10 each.

Regarding "Promises Lose Ground When Planes Are Late" (Travel Insider, Feb. 4): While three main reasons for late arrival and departure are listed (weather, politics and the airlines themselves), I fail to see mentioned the most common reason for the delay in departure that my wife and I have encountered. This is late arrival of passengers, which I find are usually in one of three categories: late arrival of a newly booked passenger, of a connecting passenger and (the most frustrating)

Dear Amy: Every year my family exchanges our gift lists, and every year I shop, wrap and ship our gifts in time for Christmas. However, one family member, who always is the first to ask what we would like for Christmas, continuously sends gifts days, weeks and at times months after Christmas. As much as we really enjoy and appreciate the gifts, it is becoming somewhat insulting to receive them so late. We have a very small family, and it is only my husband and I who receive the gifts late.

We attacked the start of first grade with military precision. Up at 6:15, with pretty purple dress at the ready. Pancake served, teeth brushed, sandals cinched -- with time to spare. We were a Swiss watch. But this isn't Switzerland. The school bus didn't arrive at 7:20, as scheduled. Or at 7:30. Or 7:45. The van finally pulled up at 7:54. But the driver gave no sign anything was wrong. She was all grins and big waves, as pleased as if she'd nailed an especially difficult dismount.

State elected officials' pay stops when the new fiscal year begins July 1 without a spending plan. But they know their back paychecks will be delivered when -- perhaps we should say if -- they finally do their duty. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger called, in January, for eliminating the back pay as well.

Electronic Arts Inc. on Tuesday canceled Tiberium, a spinoff of its popular Command & Conquer franchise of shooter games, and said it would lay off an unspecified number of employees at its Playa Vista office. "The game was not on track to meet the high quality standards set by the team and by the EA Games label," EA spokeswoman Miriam Sughayer said. Sughayer said the Redwood City, Calif., developer would strive to place most of the affected workers into other EA projects. "This is not about cutting back financially," she said.

The mystery of why the California Democratic delegation, despite having a chance to do so, didn't publicly announce its preferences in the roll call that led to the historic nomination of Barack Obama for president has been solved. The answer has nothing to do with the complicated calculations we presumed might be at work. Instead, according to Bob Mulholland, a senior advisor to the state party, California took a pass simply because a tally of its 441 votes was still underway when the state's name was called.

An attorney who was jailed last week after repeatedly arriving late -- or not at all -- to court has been placed on inactive status by the State Bar of California, thereby preventing him from practicing law, authorities said Tuesday. The order barring Stephen Charles Hollingsworth from representing clients takes effect Thursday and followed a confidential hearing into Hollingsworth's enrollment in the State Bar's "alternative discipline program." In the last few years, the attorney has been accused of a range of misconduct, including incompetence and misappropriating at least $2,643 from a client.

Dear Amy: Every year my family exchanges our gift lists, and every year I shop, wrap and ship our gifts in time for Christmas. However, one family member, who always is the first to ask what we would like for Christmas, continuously sends gifts days, weeks and at times months after Christmas. As much as we really enjoy and appreciate the gifts, it is becoming somewhat insulting to receive them so late. We have a very small family, and it is only my husband and I who receive the gifts late.

Being two minutes late to USC's 8:30 a.m. team breakfast Sunday at the on-campus Galen Center cost freshman twins Lodrick and Rodrick Stewart their spots in the starting lineup against Cal State Northridge. And both of their games suffered. Lodrick scored seven points on two-of-five shooting in 19 minutes and Rodrick was scoreless on two shots in 17 minutes. "Never in my life," Rodrick said when asked the last time he had not started.

Rare is the case that lands a defense attorney behind bars with his client. But that's what happened to lawyer Stephen Charles Hollingsworth this week. His alleged crime: tardiness. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge John J. Cheroske was so frustrated with Hollingsworth arriving at court late -- or sometimes not at all -- that he threw him in jail as a way of ensuring that the attorney would show up for court on time.

PULLMAN, Wash. -- Dwight Tardy wanted to go to UCLA. A sturdy but relatively unaccomplished sophomore running back for Washington State, Tardy said he went to every Bruins home game when he was a senior at Santa Fe Springs St. Paul High. "When they didn't offer me a scholarship," Tardy said Saturday, "I felt like I'd been passed up by my own people. That hurt. I wanted to prove something against UCLA." He did just that.