By Akiva Bryant and Brett Schlossberg
You arrive late. You drag yourself, 1 or 3 bags in tow, from the car through the parking lot and, sheepishly, to the front desk guarded closely by Coach Kim to complete the check-in process. Sometimes students can’t help it. Waking up late, slowly getting ready, and crawling through the Atlanta traffic have caused many a student’s downfall when attempting to make it to school on-time. And once you’re already late, what’s the harm in lollygagging? Well, Woodward has put a stop to that line of thinking. A new policy has been introduced – if you arrive at school later than 9 a.m., 20 minutes after the bell for first period rings, without a valid excuse, you will automatically be given a detention hour.
According to Dean Anthony Thomas, the addition of the 9 a.m. rule was created with students’ safety in mind.
“No high school students should arrive 20 minutes late to school without a note,” Dean Thomas said. “Their parents should know where they are. The school should know where they are. We have drivers, and who knows what can happen on the Atlanta street? So, we need to make sure that wherever they are, we are aware and know where they’ve been.”
But some such as Maya West ’26 consider this updated policy unfair for students who don’t commute themselves to school and instead rely on other drivers like their parents.
“If your parents drive you to school and you’re ready, if your parents aren’t ready, then that’s not your fault,” Maya said. “I feel like they should only give an hour if they know it’s your fault… because most times, especially for underclassmen, your parents are driving. You can’t control your parents.”
Others like Lauren Pinkney ’26 believe the policy will encourage students to make it to class at a reasonable time.
“I think it’ll definitely, like, motivate people to come to school earlier,” Lauren said.
Lauren’s beef, however, concerns a related policy: the number of hours you must earn before you have to serve detention.
“Can they bring back the thing where, like, after five hours, you have to serve [detention]?” Lauren said.
Although students aren’t enthusiastic about the updated late policy, it works to the benefit of teachers during class time, according to Dean Thomas.
“All of our faculty want their students in class and learning as much as possible,” Dean Thomas said. “And when you’re late to class, you’ve disrupted class, and you’re disrupting everybody in class. So we ask that you make every effort to be in class on time, unless you have a medical issue or something that comes with the note. Other than that, your expectation is for you to be in class.”
And while he knows students’ perceptions of the policy vary, Dean Thomas still believes it will hold students accountable.
“You know, typically students who are doing what they’re supposed to do, they don’t have anything to worry about because they get the notes that they should get,” Dean Thomas said. “People who are reacting negatively are people who typically don’t bring notes, and now they’re forced to be held accountable. Which is a good thing in my eyes.”
For drivers such as Jaia Williams ’26, Atlanta traffic is a daily hassle that sometimes prevents students from arriving on time every day.
“One bad day on I-285 or one day I wake up late or, like, something happened at home, you’re automatically late,” Jaia said. “I live kind of far from the school — about 40 [minutes]… Today, my drive to school was like 45 minutes.”
Still, Jaia wonders if the policy will backfire.
“If they [students] know they’re going to be late, and it’s after 9, they’re gonna be like ‘Okay, I won’t come to school,’ because not coming to school won’t get you detention, but coming after 9 will,” Jaia said. “So I feel like it might just impact people just coming in the school in general.”
While Jaia poses a different side to this argument, penalties still occur whether you’re late or absent the whole day without a note. According to Dean Thomas, if you skip the first period with no note, you get 5 hours, and if you skip the whole day, an unspecified, harsher penalty will take place. So get your doctor’s notes people!
For those with R period for their first period, the 9 a.m. rule does not apply to you. However, you still must arrive to check in to your second period on time.
“If you have R period first, R period comes with its own set of rules,” Dean Thomas said. “You are expected to be here on time for your second period class if you have R period. If you abuse the absentee policy in any way, you can lose your R period.”
At the beginning of the day, Dean Thomas argues that this rule won’t impact the slightly late and might actually help the chronically late.
“We have, you know, hundreds of students who are late from day to day, and we are just trying to make sure that we create a policy that gives grace for people who may be just running a little late, and also hold those accountable who are, you know, more than 20 minutes late to school every day,” Dean Thomas said.
