UNIVERSAL LATE WORK POLICY NEEDED

Late work is a thing many people deal with but no one thinks about. It’s a reason many students end up getting a lower grade than they should have. Students like to complain about late work but no one ever talks about it publicly. In reality, it’s easy to argue that it’s more of a cooperative effort between teacher and students. It would make everyone’s life easier if they had one universal policy and didn’t have to prioritize certain classes over others.

Students have differing views on this subject. Some students think there shouldn’t be a universal late work policy.

“There shouldn’t be a policy because every class handles work differently and it would make the teachers have to work around it which is time they could use grading or helping students,” Senior Oscar Horlacher said. While this is a good point, the way he describes it makes it seem like teachers will have to work around it, as if it’s some sort of obstacle. As long as teachers and students work together, this process could still run smoothly.

There are also students who agree with a universal late work policy.

Freshman Alexander Martinez thinks there should be a universal policy because he’s been in the situation of having to prioritize one piece of work over another. Martinez said that we should have a policy where it’s obvious what to do and when to do so that way you can sit down and do all your homework at a conformable time.

Teachers also have an opinion on this, Ms. Parrott said, “Teachers should not be forced into a late work policy”.This shows that teachers want to do their own classroom rules and don’t want any advice from students.

Something that both sides do agree on is the time something is due. For example, some teachers have a due time at 11:59pm and others have things due at 9pm or some even 8am the next day. This can get really confusing for students.

As well as this, some students have extracurricular activities after school such as clubs or sports which can limit time for homework. For example, if a student is part of the football team and has an assignment due at 9 they’ll only have an hour to do it because of football practice ending at 8pm. This can lead to students quitting their sport so they can focus on their grades.

Teachers don’t like the idea of a universal late work policy because they see it as a way to tell them how to do their job. However, it would actually benefit teachers because they can have a policy where they know how students’ other classes will be and how much work they should give. This way they can have time to grade, give more efficient work, and be able to set up the class in a way where it will benefit both parties.

The idea of a universal late work policy isn’t new, but no one wants to go through the effort of enforcing it. It’s a really controversial topic due to it being a yes or no type of situation where you’re on the side of the students or teachers, but some people support both and want both parties.

Others like freshmen Maxwell dunk think that students should have more of a choice “since they’re the ones who have to deal with the policy”. This shows that students think they should have an opinion on the matter. Freshman student Jadon Eastwood also agrees saying that “students are who the policy is for so it doesn’t make any sense how they don’t get to choose what they’ll be having to work around”.

Every student mentioned so far has a 3.5 GPA average so this isn’t people just finding a reason to complain about their grade. It’s people who have been impacted by this late work policy situation. Some of these students even say that the late work policy has had a pretty big impact on their grade.

Another problem is no current late work policy has people on covid leave in mind and all these policies are just simply old. They are out of date and don’t serve the purpose they’re supposed to. They can be changed to be more useful for both parties.

This can be a small detail that can help many students and getting new late work policy won’t be that hard to get used to.This can make teachers lives a whole lot easier and can make it so they have more time to do things outside of school all the while helping students by giving then a single unforgettable deadline.

This is a strategy some schools have already started using and so far they’re haven’t been many negatives.This strategy can make it so there is only one final goal and nothing around it distracting you this can help school GPA because student GPAs will be increasing.