The Hero passes are a new point system that the school uses to track students’ behavior, both positive and negative. They serve as a warning for students who are tardy or out of dress code, and they also track points for good behavior, such as being helpful and keeping the area clean or picking up trash. When the student receives too many negative passes, Hero gives a student detention. These points help to acknowledge when students get to school on time, help keep up perfect attendance, keeping up a good behavior, etc.
However, many students disagree with this point system because they can receive after school detention that will impact them getting home.
“We don’t have time to do after school detention,” states Gisselle Alvarez (‘26).
Many students can’t stay in after school detention because they have responsibilities to do after school and need to be home. Most students also have a long commute so we barely have time to do our homework. Students may also need to be home at a certain time to take care of their younger siblings while their parents are away or at work. Also some parents give restrictions to their child, and they can’t stay out too late.
“I myself get off at Linda Vista which takes like almost 40 minutes to get home plus sometimes I don’t get home right away because I have things to do outside of school,” says Kailani Mojica (‘27).
I take the trolley all the way to El Cajon so I can imagine how late I would get home if I were to stay for after school detention. Most students take 30 minutes to get home from school and some even take two hours. So now imagine if we were to stay for another hour or so we would be getting home very late and it would be dark and dangerous, especially in some parts of San Diego that have a higher crime rate.
In addition to transportation, most teachers assign a lot of homework and if students stay they won’t have much time to do their homework. For example, when I get home from school I usually arrive around 5:30pm then I have homework from my classes which could take me two to three hours to do. On top of that I have chores around the house before my mom gets home and I also have to take care of both of my younger siblings to help my mom while she is doing her homework.
If Preuss wants to do detention as a punishment for students who are arriving late, they should provide the option of doing it during school hours or before school so students have time to finish their responsibilities at home.
