With the start of the new semester comes the return of tardy and ID sweeps. Either caught in the hallway after the tardy bell rings or seen without their IDs, students at Coppell High School face new consequences for these actions.

If CHS associate principals Sean Bagley or Melissa Arnold see a student without an ID around their neck or late to class, they will issue a Keep Coppell Beautiful assignment, which is a 30-minute long detention for students to pick up trash around the campus after school.

Students are given a choice of attending detention Tuesday or Thursday of the week they are issued a Keep Coppell Beautiful. 

“IDs are all about safety,” CHS Principal Laura Springer said. “Especially with what’s happening around our world, we have to make sure we’re doing everything we can to keep our school safe. And for students who are tardy, putting them in [Keep Coppell Beautiful] lets them give some time back to the building of helping us take care of it since they didn’t get here on time.”

These checks occur sporadically throughout the school day by the CHS administration.

“We look at a wave of what days we’re having more tardies, what periods we’re having the most tardies, and watch [students] come in,” Springer said. “There’s a reason why we stand in the hall and watch in the mornings and afternoons. Then, we decide which period we need to do the tardy sweep because we have too many students coming in late.”

Both tardy sweeps and ID checks were introduced at the start of the school year, and their reinstatements are due to the increase of both students without IDs and being late to class.

“We’re starting back with tardy sweeps because [students] are doing such a horrible job of getting to school on time, getting to class on time,” Springer said. “Our teachers want to start teaching when it’s time, and we want to use the full 90 minutes of class to give [students] what [they] need. We’re trying to teach responsibility, and to do that, sometimes we have to be a little harsh.”

Even if Bagley or Arnold do not catch tardy students or those without IDs, a student’s own teacher can issue their own detention, which is encouraged by administration to last at least half an hour but can be extended however long the teacher wishes. If the issue persists, the student may receive an office referral.

If students have their IDs — either in their backpack or stuffed in their pockets — but isn’t wearing it around their necks, they can still receive a detention.

“The whole purpose of wearing an ID is so we can wear it and identify you,” CHS assistant principal Chase Vaughn said. “Sometimes in an emergency situation, if it’s in your pocket or around your bag, we can’t clearly see it. We need kids to wear it, so we can identify them on the spot. That extra time of getting it out can be all the difference in the time we need to identify the student.”

For students, the new policies may be a stark contrast to before, but while stringent, they are still understandable.

“It’s justifiable because with the things going on in our nation, we need our IDs to know who’s who,” CHS sophomore Rishi Bushigampala said. “I understand why the school’s doing [Keep Coppell Beautiful], but at the same time, I understand why people don’t like that because it’s an ID, and a lot of people think it doesn’t make that big of a difference.” 

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