The warning bell echoes throughout the halls. Students rush to pick up the pace to make it into the classroom. The tardy bell rings, it’s too late.

The enforcement of rules surrounding tardies and skipping has been needed, but recent implementation is poor and harsh.

The issue of late students and skipping class has been a problem for a long time now. A recently implemented rule discourages students from being tardy for their classes. The rule is called the tardy sweep. When the tardy bell rings, the administrators will walk the halls in search of any students not currently in class if they do not have a pass. If they are caught, they will be sent to the cafeteria and given ISS for the rest of that day. As one could probably imagine, that’s problematic for many reasons.

Late students will be sent to ISS if caught in the halls even if the bell just rang. The main issue with this policy is that instead of missing an estimated five to ten minutes of class getting a pass and arriving late, they instead miss the whole day in ISS. The amount of instruction time missed is valuable time that could be spent learning, but instead students are being punished in the prison known as ISS. Now students can no longer go to get a tardy pass anymore, if they go there, they are forced to go to the cafeteria for an ISS assignment. Students that are even 30 seconds late are punished indefinitely, while those who skip have even more motive.

Students skipping has always been a problem at the school, people just wandering the halls and hiding in bathrooms rather than going to class. The new policy only seems to encourage skipping. Students that are late would rather miss class than to suffer the consequences that would stay on their permanent record. Instead of just being late and being sent to ISS, they decide to take the absence for that class, as the punishment is lesser. The punishment for this is a very harsh one, while people skipping and wandering the halls rather than being in class is a big problem in the school, the punishment seems to only further encourage this behavior. 

While some say that it’s simple, just don’t be late, it isn’t that easy for most. There can be some days where a student is just late, and it’s out of their hands when they arrive to class. Due to the one day that things went wrong, an ISS is now stuck on their permanent record as a disciplinary infraction. As they announced, it won’t matter if it is the first tardy or fifteenth tardy, the student in question will still get the same punishment. Many organizations and/or clubs have rules that require students to not get ASD or ISS, and this policy, in one fell swoop, students kicked out of their activities such as UIL events or athletics. This could indefinitely ruin many students’ clean records as time goes on. 

This new policy is a very threatening fact that students are just going to have to learn to live with. While it is very harsh and scary of a punishment, take it as a sign to get to all classes on time. Repeat offender or not, anyone is in danger of ISS, so stay safe in those hallways.