JC will be anything but paperless with the increase of detention slips floating around.

The administration modified the late policy for this school year, reducing the number of late arrivals needed to receive a detention. This year, students will receive a detention on the fourth late arrival per semester. Last year, students received a detention on the sixth late arrival.

“While we had a lot of late [students] last year, we didn’t necessarily have a lot of different people late. It was the same people,” Dean of Students Thomas Vierheller said.

“I just don’t like it. I thought that five [warnings] was short enough,” senior Luke Hinder said. Hinder admits that he was late over 22 times last year.

“Hopefully the new rules will help cut down on lateness,” attendance moderator Molly Tebin said.  “It’s going to give students the right kind of motive to get to school on time.”

But with the addition of the advisory program and the rearrangement of the schedule, late students will now arrive late to class instead of late to homeroom.

“When a student walks in late to class, it’s a distraction. We’re making every effort we can this year to reduce interruptions in classes,” Vierheller said.

These changes to reduce interruptions include conducting morning prayer during mod one in a timely manner and making fewer daily announcements.

“What we’re doing is concentrating on class time, so anything that we can do to preserve class time and make it undisturbed is only better,” Vierheller said.

Despite the change in the lateness policy, the new rule was not documented in the 2010-2011 Student Handbook link on the school website at the start of the school year.  “It will be changed,” Vierheller said.

“I’m not usually late, but I can understand why students are late. Nobody wants to wake up 20 minutes early to sit in traffic,” junior Alicia Cutchin said.

In addition to the change in the lateness policy, the administration introduced a new system for tracking attendance. When students are not scheduled to have class during the first mod, students must now sign in at a designated cafeteria table.

“The one thing that I’ve stressed is signing in just for yourself because the legal ramifications for us are huge….[Signing for another student] is forgery and can leave the school with high exposure as far as legal problems,” Vierheller said.

To ensure that students only sign for themselves and not for late or absent students, guidance counselor Larry Hensley and technology specialist Charles Wilson check that the number of signatures matches the number of students at each table each morning.

“So far, [the new system] is better than expected. There are some glitches to iron out, but we’re off to a smooth start,” Wilson said.

Joey Hoff can be reached for comment at [email protected].