Imagine this: after a long night working on the multitude of essays due the next day, memorizing 100 Spanish vocabulary words for a quiz, and solving countless problems out of Finney and DeMana’s “Calculus,” you finally get to sleep at 1:00 a.m.

You set the alarm to 7:00 a.m. the next day. After six precious hours of sleep, the alarm starts to ring. Since you are so exhausted, you keep snoozing it until 7:30, when you have to wake up in order to get to class on time. You limp over to the sink, wash your face and brush your teeth. You clean your room up and make sure everything is perfect for that day’s room check. Then, you go to take a shower.

Unbeknownst to you, it is already 8:10 when you go to take your shower. You quickly shower and are back in your room by 8:20. After putting your clothes and shoes on, you grab your backpack and head out the door at 8:28. You sprint down in an attempt to get to your math class on time but you miss it by one minute.

Now, you are late. You get a text or email from Cindy Jeantete and you have another unexcused tardy on your record. Get three more of those, and you get a kitchen work crew.  

How do we prevent this accumulation of tardies? Webb should implement a one-minute grace period that could help the many students who are on the line between being tardy or on time to class (just because of a 1-minute difference).

Most students agree. Out of a sample size of 74 students, 72% of people agree that having one extra minute to get to class would help them improve their attendance and decrease the number of unexcused tardies.  

Kyle Burt (‘20) said, “Having one extra minute to get to class would really help me and a lot of other people avoid unnecessary unexcused tardies.”

Lexie Freeland (‘19) said, “I would avoid many unexcused tardies if I had more time to get to class”

Mrs. Jeantete, the Attendance Coordinator, disagreed. She said, “We usually tell the teachers to take attendance so they can get their started class started. Mostly, it’s that teachers want to get in there, they want to get started with their class.”

All in all, the Webb community could benefit from a one-minute grace period. The majority of Webb students agree, per our survey.  The administration should consider implementing a one-minute grace period prior to the beginning of the first block.