Imagine, you’re lying in bed, exhausted from a night a ‘homework’ and ‘studying’ to ensure that you pass your class. It’s been a long couple hours, and you’d be fine if you could just rest your eyes for just a moment more, only five more minutes and you’ll get up—you promise. After opening your eyes after those five extra minutes of sleep, you check the time on the phone and see it’s only 7:59. No biggie, you can totally make it to first period, which starts at 8:30, even though it’s 7:59. You just have to take a shower, brush your teeth, take the dogs out, eat breakfast, get dressed, pack your bags, and you forgot to print that paper so you have to do that immediately—oh look, the bus came whirring down the street. Looks like you forgot about that. Suddenly, half an hour to get ready doesn’t seem like enough time to make it without grabbing a tardy pass. But that’s fine, it’s only your third tardy. Oh, wait…

If this sounds like you, you may have Frequent Tardy Syndrome, and it effects a hefty population at Rich Central High School.

You are not alone.

There might not be a cure just yet, but there are ways you can change to accommodate your illness. Putting in work during SSP so you can lighten your home load may help, but for some people, that is impossible. But here is the thing—the adults know about this. Teachers, deans, all the staff know that students have jobs, homework, and individual lives outside of school.

They know an understand that being a teenager is incredibly difficult.

Honestly, if the staff are going to claim that they understand, which I’m sure they do, they should act like it. One of the ways they can do this is by extending the amount of tardy passes we can have to first period before we are dropped.

The student body is allowed five passes before we are dropped from a class for each class. If it is known that students show up later to first period, we should be able to get more passes for that specific period. It is our responsibility to get to class on time, but if it is known that we have difficult, we should have a little more help.