WICHITA | When kids at Truesdell Middle School hustle to class in the morning, they do it to &ldquo;The Hustle.&rdquo;</p><p>North High students speed up when they hear the &ldquo;William Tell Overture.&rdquo;</p><p>And the Pioneers at West High get rollin&rsquo;-rollin&rsquo;-rollin&rsquo; to the theme from &ldquo;Rawhide.&rdquo;</p><p>The latest tool for battling tardiness at many local schools is old-fashioned Pavlovian conditioning: Music &mdash; usually the same tune each day &mdash; plays over hallway or parking lot speakers as a cue for students to get to class.</p><p>Wichita district officials say the practice began at North High in the mid-1990s, when then principal Ralph Teran started playing the Lone Ranger theme about three minutes before the 8 a.m. bell.</p><p>The idea caught on, and now the technique is used across the city.</p><p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s fun, and it also takes the guesswork out of how much time they have to get to class,&rdquo; said Jennifer Sinclair, principal at Truesdell.</p><p>&ldquo;When the music starts, you&rsquo;re in motion. Close your locker, finish your conversation. It&rsquo;s time to go.&rdquo;</p><p>Truesdell employs a trio of morning tunes: &ldquo;The Hustle,&rdquo; James Brown&rsquo;s &ldquo;I Got You (I Feel Good)&rdquo; and the theme from &ldquo;Mission Impossible.&rdquo;</p><p>Sinclair chose &ldquo;I Got You (I Feel Good)&rdquo; for its upbeat message and infectious saxophone, not to mention that wake-me-up &ldquo;Woowww!&rdquo; And students seem to like it.</p><p>Recently, one boy paused briefly in the hallway to sing along: &ldquo;And when I hold you in my arms, my love won&rsquo;t do you no harm.&rdquo;</p><p>Leroy Parks cued up music at Southeast High shortly after becoming principal four years ago. He and other administrators chose Chuck Berry&rsquo;s &ldquo;Johnny B. Goode&rdquo; for a few reasons.</p><p>&ldquo;First, there&rsquo;s that &lsquo;Go, Johnny, go-go-go,&rsquo; like &lsquo;Get moving. Go to class,&rsquo;&ensp;&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;And there&rsquo;s also &lsquo;Johnny, be good,&rsquo; which is a message we hope to convey.&rdquo;</p><p>Parks said the music reduced the number of tardies and the level of nagging. Because it was so effective in the morning, he decided to play it again at the end of lunch.</p><p>One drawback to the music technique, however: Students become lost without it.</p><p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s rare that we make this mistake, but at least once a year we start the music late and the kids don&rsquo;t move,&rdquo; said Sherman Padgett, principal at North. &ldquo;They&rsquo;ve almost been conditioned too much. The bell could ring at 10 after 8, and they&rsquo;d still be standing around like, &lsquo;What? What do we do? What happened to the music?&rsquo;&ensp;&rdquo;