Everyone has that one day when the alarm just doesn’t ring or the bus was just late. Maybe the traffic was like a school of fish and you could just not make it on time. Then you finally make it to school, and—BAM! You’re caught up in a tardy sweep.

What are tardy sweeps you say? A tardy sweep is the school’s way of punishing students who are late. The security guards and deans gather all the late students in the morning, making them sign a paper stating, “I am late,” and then they send you to class.

Alex Toro, a senior, says that tardy sweeps are unnecessary, “It’s a waste of time when they have us check in with someone else to be marked tardy, when you could have gone to class and been marked tardy by the teacher.”  Alex explained that tardy sweeps are an unpleasant experience, and that they are “bad, but somewhat quick.”

What exactly happens when you’re in a tardy sweep you may be thinking?  What happens is that you write your name and grade on a blue (or sometimes red) paper, and then you go to class. It is usually followed by a security guard or teacher saying the cliche line, “Don’t let this happen again.”

Many students have wondered: What exactly is the point of a tardy sweep? Many say that it helps the teachers with their attendance roster in order to make the start of the class go quickly. But, does it really make the class go more smoothly? Some teachers don’t even take attendance until the end of class. So what is the point of all that wasted energy and time?

Matilde Villavicencio, a sophomore, stated that “The point of school is to learn. So why are they diminishing our school and class time with pointless tardy sweeps? All tardy sweeps do is stress out students more than they already are from homework, essays, and tests.” She stated that she herself has come late, but she has not yet been caught in a tardy sweep. She said that she sees her peers who get stuck in a tardy sweep and that she feels sympathy for them. At least if you accumulate a certain amount of tardies, you get to spend a hour of fun with Birmingham’s great deans!

 A tardy sweep is one of those things that everyone who’s been caught in one says is a very useless thing.