Picture the scenario: you’re running late for school. You hastily complete the tardy form at the main entrance, snag a tardy pass, and rush to your class. However, upon handing it over to the teacher, you find yourself marked as an unexcused tardy, making you wonder the real efficacy of these passes.

This question raises a mixture of opinions from students and staff members.  On one hand, many students feel like these passes don’t make much of a difference but on the other, sometimes they are helpful.

“I usually come to school late in the mornings, and I find the passes not useful because the sign-in form just wastes more time and makes me even later than I already am,” senior Rania Khreshi said.

Teachers, it seems, often overlook the passes as they fail to provide a valid excuse for tardiness. Unexcused passes lack the credibility needed to justify arriving late.

So, one might wonder: why are these passes deemed important at all? The blue pass you get from the attendance office for an excused tardy is  the only one that truly matters.

“Most of my teachers throw the yellow passes in the trash and don’t even look at them,” sophomore Andy Alvarez said. Contributing to the perception that these passes contribute to a wasteful environment.

“I always find the passes laid out around the school hallways,” senior Judith Flores said. By the end of the day, a considerable number of passes end up littering classrooms, hallways, or are simply trashed, adding more to the bad environment.

Nevertheless, despite the skepticism around their utility, some students find these passes to be more than mere paperwork. When faced by security or a teacher, presenting the pass can sometimes help you get out of trouble.

“I do think the passes are helpful; in many cases, security has stopped me on the way to class, and showing them my pass makes them let me go,” junior Daniel Nguyen said. Another perk of the passes is their ability to inform teachers of the precise time a student arrived, especially if they were lingering in the hallways.

Yet, even amid these positive experiences, some teachers express reservations about the passes and their overall effectiveness. “Even though I do think they are effective, they could be even more effective. Sometimes the passes look different. If they added more details, they would be better,” math teacher Ms. Ruprecht said.

The ongoing debate over the utility of tardy passes remains a topic of contention among students and staff. While some argue they offer little benefit and contribute to paper waste, others attest to their occasional usefulness. Despite their flaws, there is potential for improvement in tardy pass systems to better serve students and staff in managing tardiness issues within the school.