Currently, for grades 11-12, for every day an assignment is late, 20 percent gets taken off of the assignment. The 20 percent late policy rule was for all grades in the past but is directed only at the upper levels. It now gives grades 9-10 a 10 percent late penalty. This petition is to reduce the late work penalty to 5% for all grades. 

There are many reasons why the late work penalty should be changed to 5 percent. 

To begin, 20 percent can have an extreme impact on the assignment's grade, possibly changing it from a grade A to a C within one day and to an F in less than four days. This type of change in grades in just a couple of days has multiple consequences that should be considered carefully:

• It causes a lack of motivation to complete late assignments if they are even one day late. This, in turn, makes students fall behind in their understanding due to those missing assignments. 
• It leads to increased stress for assignments which decreases a student's mood.
• It ignores the fact that students have problems that can come up like everyone else's, such as family problems, depressive episodes, preparations for college, and more. 

We also need to address the idea that colleges will be even harsher on us as a driving reason for our current late policy. Regardless of the fact of whether someone is going to college or not, this idea is blatantly untrue. Different universities vary with their late policies. We can demonstrate that many do not have as harsh a policy as this proposed Oneness policy. For example, Thompson Edison University deducts 5 points from a 100-point assignment for each week, and Huntington university has a 10 points per day late policy. Many University teachers have different late policies also, as Michael Weeks, an Associate Professor at Georgia State University, has a 10 percent penalty within seven days of the due date. 

Let's change the current late assignment policy that could demoralize and stress students and make it something that balances teaching discipline and consequence with encouraging students to learn and progress. Please sign this petition to change the late policy percentage to 5 percent per day, which is still a substantial penalty resulting in a letter grade change on an assignment in 2 days.