As the 2016 school year is slowly coming to an end, many CHS students–especially seniors–are scrambling to clean up their attendance and grades. We here at the Pepperbough have noticed the issues with first period tardiness and tardy sweeps that take place here on campus. We would like express our concerns with the hope that some will take notes to make a difference.

Being tardy to school is not a good thing and of course we’re stating the obvious. Tardiness affects your attendance record which affects seniors who actually want to graduate. Class time is interrupted because you couldn’t wake up at least five minutes earlier to actually make it to school on time; by you walking in late you may have missed  an important announcement. As students ourselves here at the Pepperbough, we understand it’s not always the student’s fault if they’re late.

Not every student here at CHS can drive or walk to school themselves, and many of us are dependent on our parents. Now let us make this clear–we are not pushing all blame on parents, but sometimes it’s not entirely the student’s fault either. We can’t just force our parents to drive faster to school because we say so. Trying to tell and force our parents to do something is like an employee trying to tell their boss how to do their job; it just doesn’t work that way. When our parents are finally ready to leave it’s already 7:20 a.m. and by the time you get there, you’re marked late. It’s put on your record and it’s not even your fault.

      Another problem with many students being tardy is that darn train. Most know what we’re talking about; especially if you live on the opposite side of the tracks. Yes we’ve all heard teachers and staff tell us something like “Well, if you left sooner you’d have a better chance of missing the train.” Our only problem with this is the train doesn’t always come at the same time every morning. sometimes you can be lucky by leaving early or you can be misfortunate and have to wait. Students can’t control the train’s schedule nor speed. Waiting for the train sucks especially if you’re waiting for a really long and slow train. If you’re ever in this situation, the only advice we can give if you or your parents are driving, take an alternate route–like taking the underpass on C Street or take the freeway and get off on Rancho.

First period tardy sweeps honestly seem so unnecessary because some students are being punished for being late and sometimes it’s not always their fault. Isn’t it punishment enough that it affects our student record? If we are caught in a tardy sweep first period we are given a detention. Tardy sweeps throughout the day are okay because there shouldn’t be an excuse to be late to class. We are given plenty of time during passing period. At least with these tardy sweeps we can own up to our mistakes for being late.

We here at the Pepperbough believe we students shouldn’t be punished for actions they have no control of. It’s unfair. As we said before and we leave you with this: isn’t it punishment enough we get lates put on our permanent record?