The 2019-2020 school year has officially started, and most students entering the building on the first day were surprised to find out that Allderdice  has installed a new late policy. Last year, tardies were counted by homeroom teachers. After ten tardies, the student would receive an after school detention, and that was it.

Now tardies are being kept track of at the front door by way of a “late line.” From now on, students that come in the doors after 7:36 A.M. have to not only go through security, but also have to stand in a long line to make sure that their names are taken down to receive a tardy.

The new “late line” has caused lots of problems for students. It’s a common complaint that some students are inside of the doors before 7:36 A.M., but because of the time it takes to get through security they are counted as late. One student told me about how she got through security at 7:36am but the teachers made her be the first in the late line even though she was on time. This new system makes kids later than they already were to homeroom, and holds kids up who were actually on time. 

In addition to the “late line” craziness, students who have accumulated five tardies will now get a lunch detention and a call home. If they get ten tardies, the student gets an in-school suspension (ISS) and a call home. Finally, if the student gets fifteen or more tardies they get ISS, a call home, and can lose school event privileges.

This part of the new policy is also flawed. For example, what happens if a student doesn’t have a lunch period and does an extracurricular activity after school? Where will these lunch detentions take place and how will the student be notified?  Many students have questions about this new policy that it seems even their homeroom teachers can’t answer. It’s starting to feel like Dice wants kids to receive lunch detentions. The new late policy at Dice is definitely flawed and needs some work. Why can’t we just go back to homeroom teachers marking down tardies, who knows. 

Lots of students are enraged by the new policy as well. Allderdice student Senior Angelo Goldberg said, “The point of homeroom is to let students get to school on time and for our homeroom teachers to take attendance then!” 

Senior Abe Kurzweg said, “I walked into school at 7:34 and had to stand in line for 10 minutes when I would have made it to homeroom on time anyways. It was such a waste of my time!” 

The students are angry and homeroom teachers are confused. No one seems to have an answer for why the new late policy was initiated and how it is effective. The only thing it has done is caused more and more kids to have to miss their lunch for detention.