You’re standing in the hall chatting with your friends when you hear the bell.  You and your friends realize that it’s the minute bell that has just rung and you need to get to your class that’s on the other side of school. You rush to get to your class and when you walk in you hear your teacher announce,“tardy.” In that moment, you realize that the school has a new tardy policy.

“The building committee was talking about new ways to reduce clutter in halls and make things more consistent so we talked about it and got feedback from teachers and then decided to initiate the new policy,” assistant principal Christopher Birch said.

In the past years, the tardy policy for FHN has been more lenient. Students would be allowed to get three tardies for each class. This year, the administration staff has put a new tardy policy into place. Now, students are allowed only three tardies between all their classes before they get sent to their principal to deal with the consequences. Every quarter the tardy count for each student resets.

“We anticipate a high volume [of tardies] because of the new policy and we know the first quarter will be rough, but we feel that it will only get better,” Birch said.

The first day of this school year, the students found out about the new policy and there were mixed emotions between everyone. Some students didn’t understand the need for a new one, some didn’t like it at all and some just didn’t mind.

“I don’t understand the reason to have the new one, but I think I’ll get used to it eventually,” senior Jessica Gardner said.

Currently, in the second week of school, administrators are hoping for a change in students’ attitudes towards the policy, but they expected the confusion so they aren’t too surprised by the feedback. Students also hope to get better at making it on time to classes and making the hallways less crowded with the new implementation of the policy.

“I don’t really mind it only because I’m never usually late to class and some kids I know actually appreciate it because it’ll help them not be so held up in the hallways,” junior Ben Harris said.