Students of Troy Athens High School are required to get tardy passes from the main office if they walk into school after the first bell at 7:20 A.M. This practice was just implemented in the 2023-2024 school year, even though school policy hasn’t changed at all and no warning was given in advance to allow for preparation.

Upon entering school doors, students are directed by safe-ed (school security) to head to the office and then wait in line to print out a tardy pass. The problem with this is that the office staff only have one computer set up so only one student can print a pass at a time. The wait line is often outside the office door and usually has about 25-30 students in it. Although entering your school ID into the computer and printing out a pass only takes around 15 seconds per student, when there are that many people in the line it can take up to 10 minutes before a student can head to class. Athens faculty expect requiring students to get tardy passes to discourage being late to school and as a result reduce missed class time, but this obligation only causes them to miss more than they would if they were able to go straight to class. In addition to missing learning time, students who enter the building only a few minutes late may not get to print their pass until after 7:25, resulting in a wrongful absence as school policy states arriving 5 minutes late is an unexcused tardy on the student’s record. Often times the principal and/or assistant principals will stand in the office and observe the line, yet the issue still hasn’t been addressed. In years prior, students were able to walk in late and go to class where their teacher would then mark them tardy. This policy was effective and never appeared to cause any large problems.

I recently overheard a safe-ed telling the complaining students in line, “Well you guys really shouldn’t be late.” Although some students are tardy due to carelessness, the majority of us are late due to problems out of our control such as availability of rides or more likely, the wait to turn left into Athens from John R or from Wattles. The difficulty of turning into the school can add up to 10 minutes before students can get to parking/drop-off. Accumulating 3 tardies eventually results in detention which is incredibly unfair considering the circumstances. Until these issues are resolved, the policy requiring students to get tardy passes should be modified or better yet, gotten rid of completely.