After many failed attempts and trials, the United Nations International School has finally conceived the perfect system for tardiness. In November of 2018, the Deputy Director of the Tutorial House Office, Nancy Remmings, announced via email that in order to solve the increasingly delicate situation of chronic student lateness, the school would be implementing a minuscule paper note system. This system may seem obvious, yet it took months of planning and organizational meetings for this system to be created. As assistant to the sign-in office, John Smith explains, “It was a highly extensive process to obtain perfection. When a student is more than 2 minutes and 43 seconds late to school, they must sign in. Once signed in they will receive a 1 by 2-inch piece of colored paper. Our goal was to create a paper so small that it could be carried away by a small mouse or large cockroach, and we also kept in mind that these papers should be extremely easy to be crumpled up or lost – as to create maximum disruption for the tardy student.” When asked how the administration can prevent students from procuring their own papers Smith responded with, “Each morning a highly classified email is sent to the office containing the date – and color of paper.” Once a student receives these small slips, they must rush to their class to hand in the slips.

Unfortunately, this new system has received backlash from both the student body and faculty members. Many students have called this system “unnecessary” and “excessive,” with teachers complaining that they are stumped as to what to do with these papers. One anonymous student complains, “ Let me map this out. If my bus is late and my class is on the fifth floor, if I get to school at 8:20 and run up to my class, I may or may not be late. Should I be late, then I must venture down a floor to sign in and get my pale blue paper, and by the time I get back up, I have just wasted 10 more minutes of learning.” The school decided to respond to the complaints with a large press conference in the cafeteria.

As cameras clicked, students and parents alike, yelled and protested, Mr. Jerry, the Principal of the school, as well as Mrs. McMaain, the communication liaison, mounted the small cafeteria podium for the brief announcement. “ Students, we have heard your complaints. While there may be some small technical problems with this system, overall student attendance has increased by two thousand percent! We cannot ignore your criticisms and we must acknowledge the amount of paper wasted on a daily basis. We are working with the Veracross representatives to find creative solutions to reduce paper waste.” Unsurprisingly, this conference did little to calm the accusations from students. The art department in protest collaborated with the Drama department to create an interpretive artwork/ film piece. It featured a wall with the words “ Stop wasting our time and paper” written with the paper notes of the late attendance system in a variety of colors, as well as a creative dance showing screaming students running around with paper notes falling from the ceiling. These protests proved futile as the administration did not even respond. Yet, this situation turned catastrophic when on the 12th of January 2019, the wrong dates were printed on the paper slips. Hundreds of students turned up to class with the misprinted paper slips causing many to be turned away and locked out of their classes. Due to lack of supervision and sleep, an office assistant had misprinted the paper notes, causing chaos in the high school. Ninety-four kids wandered the halls and ditched class, as they had been locked out of their classrooms and had already signed in. In fact, the mistake wasn’t discovered until a security guard found 35 students congregating in the bathrooms. Naturally, parents and students were furious at the disarray this mistake caused, with some parents threatening to sue the school itself. The administration sent out a public apology and has vowed to investigate in collaboration with the FBI on how this incident occurred.