It was a Friday in September. I got to school at 7:00 in the morning for FCA as I would any Friday.  FCA invited a speaker who had never spoken at the school before, and he was unaware of the bell system.  His speech accidentally lasted all the way up to the two minute bell.  With my luck, I had to get from the old gym to the drama room in under two minutes.  Such a task is nearly impossible.

As I made my way down the ramp and entered the hallway, the bell rang.  I turned back around and out the door to avoid any teachers who may not understand the factors surrounding my lateness.  Of course, when I open up the door, Mr. Ross was waiting outside in the amphitheater.  I told him that I had been at FCA and was released late.  His response: Tardy.

This is just one of the many stories that shows absurdity in the tardy system.  My issue is not with the rules of the tardy system, but when the tardy system serves injustice. 

A majority of school tardies occur within a five minute window of the bell.  One second to twenty-nine minutes after the bell, a student is considered late.

Many times, however, the problem is not the timing but the reason.

There won’t be any change made to qualify students’ reasons for being late.  Yet, there will always be an instance when a tardy is caused because of some unlikely scenario- like a speaker running over time.  That is the error of the tardy system.  Sure, it isn’t a perfect system, but there are ways to use the nearly “zero tolerance” policy to a student’s advantage.

When a student realizes they must get an official front office tardy print-out, they can have some options. First, go get a tardy pass and head straight back to class or they might consider option B.

Since the deadline for being late is 29 minutes, why not use the rest of the time to your advantage?  Since you are not officially checked into school, utilize the available time up until the last minute before it’s is considering cutting in order to “get your money’s worth” out of the punishment. If your the punishment is the same for one second or 28 minutes, why not enjoy the moment?

The other solution is the “teacher pass.”  Teacher passes are the key to escaping punishment while still remaining honest.  I could have easily asked the FCA sponsor, Coach Faris, for a pass to class and completely escaped the tardy but I thought a couple of seconds would not matter.

I was wrong.

The system does not care about justice. Justice is difficult and messy. The system wants obedience and black and white policies- like tardy warnings.