Cleaning Up with a Tardy Sweep

Getting out the car, you quickly and swiftly walk to your first period in hopes that you don’t get caught knowingly that if you do, a Saturday school is in your future. Unfortunately, you hear a stern voice “You! Come here! You’re late, go sit at the lunch tables.” So you reluctantly drag your feet to the place you were appointed. You see some familiar faces, and some faces you’ve never seen at all.

You’re angry and upset. It’s the first time you’re late all year, the one time. That’s when they always get you. I know the feeling all too well for it happened to me too. Right before break, so I guess you can say it was my christmas present from Segerstrom.

Let’s just say I would return it if I could. “It wasn’t even my fault I was late. My sister took her time to take me to school and so that made me late. They should really take into account about why people are late.” said Margarita (12) I couldn’t agree more.

Perhaps someone was late due to car troubles, or their ride was late, traffic was bad, theres a multitude of possibilities. But the way the school sees it, it is that they are trying to prepare you for the career world. And we all understand that, except if we were in the career world we wouldn’t be late because we get paid whereas for school it’s more of just a slap on the wrists. “If I were your employer, and this were a business, I would fire you.” said Mr. Church as he handed out multiple saturday school’s.

“It’s all about accountability, we’re just trying to prepare you guys for the job world.” Yes that is true that we would’ve been fired if this were a business, but what about for those who were late for the first and last time. If anything that would’ve been a warning. They warn you for being late the first time, then if it is an occasional occurrence being fired is the next step. “It’s so dumb.

All we did was sit there for four hours wasting our time for nothing.” stated David (11) It was really inefficient if you ask me. If they are preparing us for the job world, I don’t think that they are going to punish us by sitting us down in the conference room and make us think about what we did for hours on end, while within that time span something efficient could’ve been achieved. If they are trying to prepare us for the job world, then why not give us a real punishment, something that will benefit us as well as show us that what we did was wrong. “But you know that there was a way of getting out if it right? If your parents came in for a conference with me, I would’ve ripped up the paper and dismissed you from Saturday School.” said Mr.

Church. And as much as I would’ve taken that in the snap of a fingers I didn’t. It was my fault I was late so I might as well take the punishment,you do the crime you do the time. Just like how you would with a job. I don’t think if you were to get punished in the job world, my parents can come back me up, telling my employer I was late because traffic was bad or my car decided not to start or because my parents took their sweet time taking me to work. We are supposed to take the punishment and learn from it.

“I thought Saturday School was supposed to teach us something, instead it taught us how to sit down for four hours. Useless if you ask me.” said Victoria (11)