Don’t be late … and get rid of the gum

Get rid of the gum. And don’t be late.

Those are a few of the rules  “Sheriff Ferrari” wants to get across to students this year.

Upper School Assistant Principal Mrs. Theresa Ferrari made her point at Monday’s first assembly with a special surprise.  To emphasize and reinforce school policy, the faculty put together a hilarious video that showed various teachers pretending to be students who break the rules.

While the students got a good laugh out of the presentation, there are a few guidelines that Mrs. Ferrari and the staff want to make sure are clear.

Last year, the tardy policy only allowed for four tardies until your phone was taken up by the administration. However, Mrs. Ferrari found some problems with this punishment.

“That appeared to be a good deterrent for some people, but for others it didn’t seem to make any difference,” she said. “The real issue with that this year was the fact that we’re working with both the upper and the middle school. That really takes up a lot more of my time, Mrs. (Margaret) Brogdon’s time, and Mrs. (Robin) Schorr’s time.”

This year, Mrs. Ferrari will give a detention for every fifth tardy.

“The idea there really was to simplify matters and, hopefully, a detention will deter people more than losing their phones,’’ Mrs. Ferrari said.

Another new, but major issue that the staff made apparent in their video was chewing gum. The issue is not necessarily the chewing of gum on its own, but rather what is done with the gum afterward.

“On the very first day of school, the half day, I came out into the hall, and there was Dr. (Bob) Veto scraping two fresh pieces of gum out of the carpet,” Mrs. Ferrari said.

She said Mr. Wayne Flanders, the school’s director of facility maintenance, told her once gum has been on the carpet more than a couple of days, it cannot be removed.

“(He said) it simply will not come out,” she said.

Chewing gum is now worthy of a demerit.

The new discipline is not all bad. Mrs. Ferrari wants the school to know that there is one alternative to the gum issue.

“I would like people to know that I do have mints in my office and if people feel the need to freshen their breath, they’re welcome to come take one mint at a time from my candy jar on my table.”