You may remember a hall monitor pop-quizzing you about your recent whereabouts. They may have even made you fill in a form. It is likely that you lived through this week because  over students being late to school have continued among faculty members this semester. Principal Langer had even voiced his concerns through the announcements one morning after the pledge of allegiance. Faculty members and attendance officers promptly and unanimously agreed, especially after conducting surveys for a week, that the cause of this is students waking up late.

This cause of student tardies is a complex yet straightforward situation. If we genuinely want to stop the morning rush hour in the attendance office for grabbing first dibs on passes, we need to dig a little deeper. “Duh, just wake up early,” some might say, but waking up early in the morning is not an easy task. Some students have late-night study hours, some have genetically delayed circadian rhythms, and some have a severe case of a post-quarantine setback. Whatever the reason is, sleep is both a friend and a foe to many high school students. 

Of course, COVID-19 was a setback to everyone and making that Starbucks stop is a true game-changer, but the consequences of our tardies are not going to be a simple glare from the teachers for long. According to a Fremd attendance official, tardiness used to have more substantial consequences. If you were tardy five times, one detention was issued, and if there were more than ten, there would be even more significant consequences. They strongly suggested that stricter school attendance procedures would start back up once COVID-19 has become old news. 

Believe it or not, the school is not trying to scare us with these consequences. Fremd, like all high schools, is trying to prepare us for the future because punctuality is a crucial part of being a strong leader in society. Studies have shown that punctual people are more likely to be respected by their peers and promoted within their companies. And who doesn’t like that? Whether arriving on time for meetings or turning in applications on time, punctuality is apparent in everything. We cannot let potential opportunities fly by us. 

It is almost impossible to be a brand new, punctuality-conscious school even with these future consequences. Yes, these consequences will start scaring us, but we need to do a lot more than set the alarm clock back an hour and hope for the best. We need to build habits. Habits can make or break our everyday schedules, and it is something that will stick with us for a very long time if we work on it long enough. On average, it takes 66 days to build a lasting habit. That is a good chunk of time, but not a lot of time in your whole life, especially if it’s about making a habit that might change your life for the better.

So, what are these life-changing habits? Do you have to start waking up at 4:00 AM and start chugging protein shakes every day? No! It is best, to begin with, subtle actions such as cutting technology out 10 minutes before shut-eye and pushing the time limit 5 minutes every day. Little steps like this will go a long way in the punctuality department. And this does not just apply to punctuality and can be used to other goals you want to achieve in the new year. School may seem pointless to students at times, but habits such as these stick with you. You can thank the school later when you get a raise in the future because of your excellent work and punctuality.