one of the suggested late policies was to just give everything that's late an instant zero
my girlfriend's English teacher gave her a zero on an assignment because she didn't have it completely finished when she got to class, he wouldnt even take what she had done and yet he still made her turn it in because it was part of a larger project even though she got no points for that particular phase of it
I try to model myself on teachers I actually liked and who were actually good and engaging teachers
not on shit ones
find a mentor with like 20 years teaching experience