Photo courtesy of freshman Cate Tucker

 San Luis Obispo High School has decided to give students lunch detention if they are not at school on time. SLOHS has recently become a gated campus. Meaning, administrators fenced the entire school and the only way in is the front gate or main office.

“There is a natural consequence for being late to school, you miss class. It’s not fair to make students wait in long lines after being only a few minutes late and end up missing a lot of class,” said freshman Phoebe Drazsnzak.

While some students would agree with Drazsnzak, sophomore Mars Huebler has his own thoughts. 

“If you’re late to class, don’t be,” said Huebler.

This policy is newly implemented with the return to school for all students, post distance learning, a new administration team, and lots of new fencing around the drop off points on campus. Expressions asked Principal Rollin Dickinson how he thought it was going and why this was important. 

“I think that it is not fair to be giving students lunch detention if they are late to school because most students will have one day that they are running behind. Lunch detention seems pretty harsh for one or even three days of being tardy,” said senior Violet Emerson.

“It is important to have a school culture where being present matters and being on time is expected. It is also important for us to support our students who have difficulty with attendance so that they can more fully access their educational opportunities. We gave everyone a couple weeks to figure out where their classes were and how long it takes to get to school and now know it is appropriate and respectful to expect people to be on time. Our tardies have decreased dramatically—we now have very few—and that is good,” said Dickinson.

Don’t like the new policy? Show up to school early. The parking lot is mostly empty at 7:30 a.m. After 7:40 a.m., the parking lot is a nightmare.