Last year, BSM was more lenient on class tardies and their consequences. However, this year they are back to cracking down.

Unlike previous years where you had to get five tardies in a class before you received a detention, this year you can only get five overall. Another change is after just three tardies, a student has to attend a behavior support meeting and their parents will be notified. Throughout the school, many students are unhappy with this change. “I just don’t think it’s really fair because there are so many things that play into it and you shouldn’t get detention for five tardies. It’s just too harsh,” sophomore Casey Butner said.

For students, many times a lot of factors go into them receiving a tardy. Many students have lockers or classes far from each other. With the busy hallways, and only five minute passing time, this does not aid well to being on time. Also some students may need to grab a water bottle from the commons or use the bathroom. Many students don’t feel they should be penalized because of these circumstances. “Sometimes you can get to your classes on time, but not always. Especially for me because now my locker is really far down in the main hallway and I have a lot of classrooms on the opposite side of the school,” Butner said.

Among the annoyance with this change, students feel that they do not have enough passing time. Many agree that it wouldn’t be hard to follow this policy if they increased passing time by just a few minutes. “I think we should just get more time and passing time. They can keep the tardy policy the same but probably bump it up like seven minutes for passing,” sophomore Dylan Popehn said.

With just a few more minutes, students feel they would be able to get to class making the new tardy policy feel more reasonable. However, as this is not the case many students are still going to be receiving tardies and therefore serving detentions. Due to this new policy, students will have to serve a Saturday morning detention after 10 tardies and attend a behavior meeting with their parents. Many students don’t feel this is the best use of their time. “It doesn’t benefit the students because we have to spend our own time in detention. I think it’s just unfair,” Popehn said.