[frice2000]

All Schools that I know of have a homeroom regardless of whether or not they call it that. The first period of a day is your homeroom if you have no official homeroom. Official school announcements are handed out then and more importantly attendance for the day is taken. This is required for legal reasons the most important of which being that the student actually attended class. If they show up late or cut later this information is thus known by the school and disciplinary action or referral to child welfare agencies can be taken if necessary. That is at least how it works in every state that I am aware of in the US and I would assume its much the same in other countries since most school policies come from the same educational philosophers.