'It took them a full MONTH to catch onto us': Students find loophole in lateness policy and show up three hours late with minimal punishment

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Ben Weiss • Writer and Editor
Nov 3, 2023 8:00 AM EDT

Being late occasionally is an inevitable part of life; that being said, testing your school's lateness policy can be a tricky tightrope walk. On the one hand, school administrators who are obsessed with enforcing lateness policies should have far more important things to worry about. On the other hand, students should have far more to be concerned with than finding loopholes so they can miss three hours of class each day.

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  • 01
    Property - "If you're late to school, you get half an hour of detention"
    via Ivan Aleksic

  • This thread was posted to Reddit's r/MaliciousCompliance subreddit by u/Vio_Amethyst, who got a lot of criticism in the comments section for bragging about missing class. He and his classmate attended a school where students would receive a half-hour detention for showing up late. What the administrators didn't foresee was that students would catch on to the fact that it did not matter how late students were. No matter what, they would always just receive a half-hour detention period. This meant that rebellious teenagers like OP and his friend could show up hours late every day and roll in with coffee and sandwiches in exchange for happily staying behind after school for just 30 minutes. 

    Keep scrolling below for the full story and for the best reactions in the comments section. For more content like this, check out this post about an employee who just stopped coming into the office.

  • 02
    Font - If you're late to school, you get half an hour of detention S OC This policy was enacted by my high school in my last few years. Once classes started the gates were shut, and if you arrived late, you had to sign in at the office. This gave them a list of kids to pick out at the end of the day, and we would have to sit in detention for half an hour. But it was only ever half an hour - no matter how late you were.
    via u/Vio_Amethyst
  • 03
    Font - Cue me and my best friend enjoying our extended lie-ins in the morning, then walking into town to hit up McDonalds or Subway for breakfast, before casually strolling in between two and three hours late, signing in, and just happily accepting the extra half an hour detention at the end of the day.
    via u/Vio_Amethyst
  • 04
    Font - It took them a full MONTH to catch onto us. At which point the late policy was changed and we were given a full week's worth of detention each - which A) absolutely did not make up for the time lost, and B) was well worth it for the best month of high school we'd ever had. It's safe to say the two rebel teenagers won that round.
    via u/Vio_Amethyst
  • 05
    Font - nyrB2 2 days ago when i was going to high school it seemed absenteeism was all they cared about. people were praised just for showing up. i was a bit of a nerd so skipping classes was not something i considered, and at the time the whole thing seemed very confusing to me. 1.1k Reply Share
    via u/Vio_Amethyst
  • 06
    Font - cinygirl 2 days ago From my understanding, states fund district and schools based on attendance percentages. So if attendance is low, less money is given to schools because they don't have a lot of bodies present! Schools need the money though. Kids would show up and do nothing all day to still receive a perfect attendance award at the end of the quarter. 444 Reply Share
    via u/Vio_Amethyst
  • 07
    Font - NotSoSlenderMan. 2 days ago My school was the same but no penalty for being absent. The power went out in the night once so our alarms didn't go off. My mother drove me to school to sign me in and then the receptionist told me to wait in a chair outside the dean's office so I could get my detention slip.
    via u/Vio_Amethyst
  • 08
    Font - My mother questioned this and was told the policy. She asked what was the consequence for not coming in to school at all and the lady told her there wasn't one. She scratched my name off of the sign in sheet and took me back home for the day. 597 Reply Share
    via u/Vio_Amethyst
  • 09
    Rectangle - iamthetrippytea. 2 days ago What a g. Good moms are out there lol 4 167 Reply Share
    via u/Vio_Amethyst
  • 10
    Font - Subterranean_Phalanx 2 days ago When I was in high school, they would, after giving in-house detention (basically quarantined away from classes but still doing the required work), they would suspend people after they had a certain number of unexcused absences. I never understood the logic of this. For skipping school,
    via u/Vio_Amethyst
  • 11
    Font - the punishment was ... not being able to attend even if you were inclined. The handful of people I knew who did this just hung out with older friends and basically were on vacation during that month or whatever. I guess the idea was that if you got suspended you'd be failing your classes and have to repeat them and not graduate on time, but if you've got a chronic absentee, do you really think they're that concerned about their academic record? At least a couple of them dropped out and go
    via u/Vio_Amethyst
  • 12
    Font - Won't lie though, I'd have loved to skip out on boring classes, but in a small town that's hard, because unless I was being driven around in the trunk of someone's car, my parents would have heard about it before I even got home. We didn't have AP classes and I was rarely challenged. I stuck it out though, and moved 2,500 miles away at my earliest opportunity, and was happy, so playing their game and playing the long game worked out. TL;DR: is suspending a kid from school actually punishm
    via u/Vio_Amethyst
  • 13
    Font - TheInfiniteSix. 2 days ago Upvoted for being malicious compliance but I don't really know why you're bragging about skipping school. I assure you most adults don't find this super cool and edgy, if anything I'm just lumping you into all the people I knew who cut class a lot. Those people were....not great. 133 Reply Share
    via u/Vio_Amethyst
  • 14
    Font - JeepNaked 2 days ago I lived on my own as a senior and could write my own notes. I would ask for paper and write it at the counter and hand it to them. 쇼 102 Reply Share
    via u/Vio_Amethyst
  • 15
    Font - -JakeRay- 2 days ago Just chiming in to say I did not expect this sub to be the one where I'd see "Stay in school! It's for your own good!" replies today 4 74 Reply Share
    via u/Vio_Amethyst
  • 16
    Rectangle - Geop blairmac81 2 days ago . So you lost 40-60 hours of school, awesome 70 Reply Share
    via u/Vio_Amethyst
  • 17
    Font - n darkspark_pcn - 2 days ago . I did something similar. Our punishment for not doing our homework each week was one detention, but that was just to sit inside for a lunch break. I realised that was definitely a fair trade, so I just didn't do my home work, took the detention and read books, I didn't mind the solitude and it was only for a lunch break. Then one day the teacher realised I hadn't done my homework for a whole term, so they called my parents in and asked all the questions, I w
    via u/Vio_Amethyst
  • 18
    Rectangle - Salty818 2 days ago Agree. Bunking off school is a dumb thing to do. Which, ironically, makes you dumber.
    via u/Vio_Amethyst
  • 19
    Gesture - faithfulheresy 2 days ago Missing school is losing, not winning. The only malice here is self- sabotage.
    via u/Vio_Amethyst

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FAILS detention school FAIL students malicious compliance teenagers malicious-compliance-reddit teachers School of FAIL high school reddit thread late Reddit
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