Schools often put in policies with the best of intentions, but then the students respond in unexpected ways.

That is what happened in this story when a school said that anyone who lost their student ID would have to serve five special detentions, which were detentions normally reserved for the most severe forms of misbehavior.

So, when a student lost or misplaced their ID, they would simply skip classes since that came with a less severe punishment. The school took less than a year to realize that this was a dumb policy.

At least they finally changed it. I find it funny how often places make new policies without thinking them through. Read through the full story to see for yourself.

Lose your school ID and get 5 special detentions…

This was ten years ago, during my freshman year of high school.

This policy makes sense to help ensure nobody who doesn’t belong there gets in.

Midway through the year, our school tightened up a policy on IDs.

You now needed an ID to enter and exit the school building during the day – we were allowed out during lunch or free periods.

Wow, this seems pretty extreme.

Before, if you needed a new ID, you just bought one for $25 and that was the end of it.

Now, they changed the policy so that you would get 5 special detentions if you lose an ID anytime after the start of the day.

I bet the students hated these.

Special detentions, unlike regular detentions, had to be served immediately and consecutively.

You could serve regular detentions whenever you wanted as long as you had none by the end of the school year.

Why was losing an ID listed with these special detentions?

So, special detentions were much worse, especially for the kids that had time-dependent responsibilities like looking after their siblings after school.

Getting special detentions was a non-option for most people.

I wonder if lost IDs were a huge problem here.

You could also get a special detention for stuff that wasn’t stupid, like bullying or theft, but losing an ID/getting it stolen was almost never the offender’s fault, and they still had to deal with it.

You also got one detention for each class missed, but that was pretty much the only way to get a regular detention. It was strictly enforced, no more no less.

This honestly made sense for the students.

Now, most of the students immediately realized that if they lost their ID while they were outside (lunch started at 4th period, and there were 9 periods) there’s no reason to go back to school because they’ll get in more trouble.

I lost my ID once and just left school and headed home, but another day my friend had his wallet stolen while he was outside and he had nothing to do, so he just spent the day in the courtyard.

Even the teachers understood what the students did.

Made sure to knock on and wave in the window of a class he was forced to miss and emailed the teacher from his phone to tell her what happened.

The teacher was completely understanding and didn’t punish him further for that.

They finally realized what a stupid policy it was.

I don’t know the full extent of these things happening but the school quietly changed the policy over a year later.

This is a perfect example of the rule of unintended consequences. When you make a rule or policy, people will find ways to follow it that serve them best. Even if it isn’t what the people in charge wanted.

Read through what the people in the comments have to say about this story below.

I was wondering this as well.

They are teaching the wrong lesson.

How did the school not see this coming?

Kids lose things a lot.

The school administrators should have seen this coming from a mile away. When making policies, you really need to think through how the students (or anyone) will comply with them.

At least they learned their lesson and changed the policy eventually. And at least the students got a funny story out of it.