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Hi Michelle, I am a high school teacher. At my first school I had a similar policy but would allow students to recoup the other half of their credit for late work if they came in at lunch or for my after school tutorial to make it up. The policy in my department was half credit for work but I realized quickly, like Adeliz, that the students who were consistently turning in late work or worse no homework were the ones that had parents working overtime, or were responsible for siblings, or were having some major personal issues outside of class (depression, death or illness of a family member, drug abuse etc.) Of course there were my apathetic students too who I could never figure out but at least with this modification to the policy I could net a few of them. The extra time at lunch or tutorial provided them the focused work space that they may not get at home. It also gave me a chance to check in with them "conference" with them about what was going on. If late work was consistent then they would get a phone call home recommending that they attend my tutorials weekly so that they could get their homework done there. Again this worked for some students not all but there were definitely students that this helped tremendously. At the second school I worked at the grading policy separated the behavior of late or missing work from their grade entirely. We also had less homework and the students moved from class to class in cohorts so that we could more easily communicate about their overall progress. The support structures of tutorial, intervention classes, and even Saturday tutorial sessions were required for any students not completing their work or passing the summative assessments (competencies). We also had a lot of student and parent conferences if a student was slipping behind. In 9th grade the behavior of late or incomplete work spiked as students tried to play the game but over the course of 4 years we saw students taking initiative and responsibility for their work and producing beautiful work. This policy would only work if the administration was behind it and had supportive and organized intervention plans in place.

Depending on what the assignment was, I may have them go to another teacher's class to complete. If it was a project I would ask what help would they need to complete it. I happily print out info if that is what they needed. I would give them one or two more days to turn it in with the understanding that for each day late, the work drops one letter grade if they have every item included. I agree with the others that sometimes the problem is a home issue.