The bell sounds, and to the amazement of campus faculty, the hallways are silent and devoid of student life. The accomplishment of this seemingly impossible feat can be attributed to a revised tardy policy.

For some students, these new regulations have ended in consequences, pointing towards suspension early in the year.

“The new policy will hopefully make the students realize that when they get suspended, they will get an F in their classes for that day,” Gary Schultz, principal said. “We had to make the punishment more severe so the students would have a reason to not be tardy.”

Students have a hard time understanding the administration’s point of view; they just see additional restricting rules.

“The new policy is harsh, they went from detentions to suspensions,” Eric Neufeld, ?05, said. “It is not always easy to be on time.”

Students find the extreme punishment threatening, a factor that may have been part of the motivation for the administration’s decision.

“Detentions were not working,” Schultz said. “Kids figured if half their friends were spending lunch in detention, they might as well go too.”

More strict punishments do not mean that all the students will be harshly punished without any chance to give a reason for their actions. The size of the student body still allows for compassion from the teachers.

“I carpool to get to school,” Madeline Ervin, ?04, said. “It is not always my fault if I’m late to class.”

The faculty understands these situations; the policy is not to punish students who are seldom late by circumstances they cannot control.

“If a good student is tardy once with a good reason, they will not get in trouble,” Schultz said. “This rule is mostly for the 10% of the student body that are repeatedly tardy.”

Not all students have a hard time understanding the rules are not there to hang over their heads, but to stop the abuse from the students who didn’t consider the former penalties to be punishment enough.

“Most of us do get to class on time,” Joseph Pettit, ’03, said. “The new policy will keep the others from messing around in the hallways.”

Campus administration had been tired of spending valuable time dealing with the same tardy students repetitively.

“We are here to educate, not to discipline. Teachers were wasting their time punishing the same kids over and over,” Schultz said.