Students can once again lose credit in a class for unexcused absences, principal Alan Goodwin announced on Whitnet Aug. 26.
This year’s attendance policy is similar to the Loss of Credit penalty from two years ago, but instead of a student automatically losing credit after five unexcused absences or fifteen unexcused tardies, counselors and administrators will work closely with the student to prevent absences.
The Board of Education decided to replace last year’s attendance policy, which only gave out zeros for missed work, because of a dramatic increase in absences across the county.
“All 25 principals were looking for a reinstatement of the attendance policy,” Goodwin said. “Whitman students basically go to class and do their work, but even we noticed it second semester.”
Under the new attendance policy, once a student has three unexcused absences in a class, the teacher will notify the student of the possibility of loss of credit, and the new automatic attendance system will email the student’s parents, counselor and administrator. The student and parent must then meet with the counselor and administrator to discuss reasons for the absences and determine how to avoid future absences.
After five unexcused absences in a class, a student will fail the course if he doesn’t choose to appeal his attendance record or follow an intervention plan designed by the administrator and counselor and continues to miss class.
The new policy allows counselors to determine whether skipping class is a real problem for the student, Goodwin said.
“What’s supposed to happen then is the counselor and/or administrator meet with students and say, ‘Hey, did you just forget to turn in a note?’ And then you clear it up so they’re excused,” Goodwin said. “Or you find out they skipped, you start addressing that, how they’re going to take care of it, and you create a contract.”
Teachers will also be held more accountable for immediately submitting their attendance through the online database.
“It’s really intense right now,” social studies teacher Peter Kenah said. “There’s a new attendance policy that we have to keep. Teachers are going to have to do their jobs better.”
With the LC penalty back, many students will pay more attention to turning in excused notes and avoiding unexcused absences.
“I will definitely be more careful about making sure I don’t get unexcused absences,” junior Gabby Sitrin said. “I think that the change will make students reconsider skipping class because the consequences of having an unexcused absence are much greater.”
strong • Sep 7, 2011 at 12:20 pm
You can’t make a decision to remove the new policy after a single year. Teachers weren’t accustomed to the new LC policy, and didn’t hand out as many small tests and quizzes as the new policy in all but name required them to do to keep kids from skipping. None of the staff was given sufficient time to get used to the new system, and on top of that, there is also the consideration that simply because of the novelty of the new policy, students may have just been trying to see how far they could go. Testing their limits, to rephrase it. I and every teacher I’ve asked was completely unaware of the rising number of absences (although it’d be nice if we were told by how much absences increased; statistics can be misleading), and due to the combination of these factors, canceling the new policy after a single year is a folly of the highest order. I don’t care how much pressure each principal put on the administration to remove this new policy, they shouldn’t give in to popular pressure (this isn’t Congress) to make a bad decision.
shinduk • Sep 1, 2011 at 2:39 am
Sucks to be class of ’12!!!!
John • Aug 29, 2011 at 12:09 am
Consequences are more effective than no consequences? Who knew?