“Welcome Raiders and all who are new to our community! Central Catholic cannot contain our excitement: we missed you all so much that they just couldn’t wait to have you back. In fact, we missed you so much that we’ve already scheduled your very first detention for being late! But don’t worry, it’s all in the Raider spirit of ‘punctuality appreciation.”

Yet, this wasn’t the only surprise in store for new freshmen. Before this all unfolded on Monday, September 11th, there were treacherous thunderstorms that wreaked havoc in our area and impacted many of our students. This included power outages, destroyed property, trees collapsed onto the road, and much more. These conditions are most certainly not ideal.

However, the recovery was still ongoing as of Monday morning. Trees were still laying lifeless, houses lacked light, and roads were clogged. Wouldn’t an exception to being late after a disaster be the least thing that could be done? Especially to those who are new to our family – what would this first impression leave on them?

One freshman, who was counted tardy in homeroom on the first day of school, reported that they had to drive to school despite their neighborhood being out of power for several days with the addition of hazardous trees laying on roads.

Yet, it was followed by a Tuesday detention. Clearly, they were not the only ones with this unprecedented first day of school experience. On the first day alone, there was an estimate of 30-40 tardy students according to one witness in Tuesday’s detention. The majority of the subjects were unsuspecting freshmen. At least they are already getting the true Raider experience.

The reason behind these implementations by administrators was to ensure all students were held accountable for attendance due to an increase in students skipping classes.

However, what’s the point of a rule that does more harm than good? After all, rules are meant to ensure fairness. Like Nelson Mandela observed, “Collective punishment is like a thunderstorm without rain, where the guilty and innocent are equally drenched.”