Sweep. The little white room where tardy students are forced to stare at a blank wall. The only thing worse than sitting there in the uncomfortable silence is the paper over the clock continuously reading 2:30.

If you’re going to force me to sit there at least let me count down the minutes until I can escape this closely resembling insane asylum room.

Everyday students are given five minutes between periods to get to class and even a second past the late bell will earn you a trip straight to sweep where you must stay for the remaining hour and lose credit for the day.

“(The purpose of sweep is) to limit distractions in the classroom and teach the students not to be late,” said Lisa Fleet, the secretary for sweep.

I agree that sweep is a punishment that shows students that life comes with consequences but it’s pointless to have a student miss the entire class when they might have only been a minute late to class.

More often than not, students are late because they had to come from the other side of campus or went to the bathroom.

Don’t get me wrong it always depends on the teacher, some will let you through the door, but the ones that won’t, have a little slack, seriously. Making your student miss the entire day of class is really only hurting the students grade, especially for the regulars in sweep.

The problem isn’t sweep itself, the problem is how it’s enforced. Sweep is good to get students to class on time because honestly I’d rather be in class then sweep.

I would even go as far as saying that putting that student back in class is even more of a punishment then having them sit in sweep doing nothing.

If a student is late and you haven’t finished attendance, let them into your class. You want them there learning don’t you? And if they are late past the limit then at least let them do their class work in sweep. This way the student is learning and class isn’t disrupted.

There.

Problem solved.