Attendance Policy Giving Your Child F’s
December 9, 2009 by Brian
Filed under Featured, Posts About The Franklin County Attendance Policy
Your friends have found this to be true! If you know anyone that has missed more than 5 days, ask them if they realize that they are going to get F’s until (and if) they get the attendance waiver at the end of the semester! You can find many of your friends at Saturday school – the next one is January 9th. Each person that is made aware of the new policy is really ticked that one person is ruining his/her (or a friend’s) transcript. We may not individually have much influence on the president of the USA, but we certainly should have the power to make sure Dr. Lackey is not allowed to hurt us! Sign the petition now and get others to do the same!
In the attendance letter dated Oct. 20, 2009 from Mr. Crutchfield it sounds as if failure to attend Saturday Schools will be what results in not receiving credit. In fact,those Sat. schools (for the 6th and 7th days missed) only put them in a position to request credit. The effect is that they will receive an F in all the classes for that quarter in which more than 5 days were missed unless they are successful in receiving a waiver (not determined until the end of the semester.) It is important to realize that only excused absences will generally be considered for the waiver even if they went to Sat. schools ($20/session). Some unexcused reasons that you might miss could be: a family trip, a leadership seminar, a church trip, Scouts, suspension from school because you were attacked and fought back, or weather delay in returning from a trip. You guys will be able to think of many more.
The main concern about this is that if a student misses 8 days in a quarter, they will almost certainly have F’s for the quarter. Also, they have almost no incentive to show up or do work (especially homework) for the remainder of the quarter.
So, like the picture shows,a student will get F’s on their actual report card and have to worry themselves silly until someone “from above” decides to grant a waiver at the end of the semester!
It seems a no-brainer to be able to realize that most non-school events are usually carefully planned for only one extended period. Therefore, 10 days for a trip is a generous amount and will work with the current policy fine as long as it happens to fall between two quarters. But, you are screwed if it falls in only one quarter!
i hate the attendance policy. it doesnt make sence. if u miss a day because you’re at the doctor or other good reason, and that day is your 6th day, you have to pay $20 to get a credit in that class, and even if you have a note, it will still count against you. i think even though you miss more than 5 days in a class, you should still be able to get credit in that class. it should be determined on your grade at the end of the semester, not on how many days you missed:)
I really don’t like this attendence policy. It’s ridiculous to get an F in a class that you may have an A in just because you missed 6 days in.
The problem with the current attendance policy is the school system’s refusal to discern between an excused absence and an unexcused absence. As the current policy stands, a student absent for “skipping school” is treated the same as a student absent for an orthodontist appointment, or a student absent to attend a family funeral or a student absent with the swine flu. I know of no other workplace that fails to distinguish between excused and unexcused absences. Hopefully, the school system will demonstrate some intelligence in quickly correcting this issue.
Oh come on, are you for real?! What was wrong with the old policy?! I mean some people just can’t afford saturday school. Especially in this recession. I mean really, and also if a child was to develop a sickness that put them out of school for a while, it wouldn’t be their fault!! This policy needs to go to the dump.
This policy is ridiculous. There is absolutely no reason why the school should not discern between excused and unexcused. The only problem with that that I could fathom is that they are worried about parents covering for their kids or forgeing notes, but that is an entirely different problem that should not be covered in this policy and punish all other students. As long as a student can make up thier work and maintain a good grade in a class then a few missing days should in no way cause them to fail the classes that they have put hard work into.
As a student this policy does not make me want to be sure not to miss any days, it makes me angry that they administration does not trust us to make up work and still succeed in our classes despite absences for excused reasons.
The last Saturday schools are May 22 and June 5th
this policy is seriously stupid.They say if you bring in a doctors excuse you will be excused. NOT TRUE. I have missed classes a lot for orthodontist apts and they give me excuses to give to the school and those missed classes were NOT excused. I also missed school for having a horrible case of the flu. My mom (who is a registered nurse) knew what i had and figured there was no need for me to go to the doctor so when i returned to school she wrote me a note stating why i was absent.those missed days were NOT excused. One girl at our school has been out for around a month because she has the swine flu. She has sent in excuses stating her illness and will most likely fail her junior year. This policy is just totally uncalled for. i mean what is the difference between 10 days and 8? yeah, obviously 2 days but really?! 2 days?!If the people at the head of our school district think failing a student because they had a doctors apt., an orthodontist apt., and illnesses that cannot be helped in 8 days maybe they should find another job or hey, actually do their job and do whats best for the students(which in my opinion is NOT failing them for stupid reasons THAT THEY HAVE LEGIT EXCUSES FOR.) I have attended a saturday school for my missed days and honestly…it was stupid. my teacher didnt give me any work to do so i sat there for 4 HOURS and read a book. yeah that reeeaaallly helped me with my earth science class..NOT. So pretty much my parents paid $20 for me to sit and read in a cafeteria.
This policy is something that truly just does not make sense to me. My whole point on this new policy is the fact that they just want the extra Saturday Schools during a 9week period to get more “20 dollar visitors” and make more money off of us. As if all of the other programs they put on dont mooch of the wallets of the students.
Oh and I have experience with this policy. They failed me on my first semester of my Junior year due to multiple accidents in which I had BROKEN BONES! But according to the Administrators, that was not a valid excuse *even with doctor notes* to pass with a waiver. This seriously needs to stop.
The key issue with this bad policy is NOT the Saturday School or the $20 fee that goes with it.
It’s the fact that you get all F’s for missing just 6 days of school regardless of your history or transcripts.
Attending Saturday School does NOT reinstate your grades. It merely gives you an opportunity to apply for an attendance waiver. The keyword here is APPLY for the waiver. It does not guarantee that the waiver will be granted even if you have a medical excuse.
Judging from some of the comments posted by students and parents, kids are still getting F’s and having to re-take classes even with medical excuses. The lesson the policy is teaching students is that your performance doesn’t matter. Only that you show up.
Business owners need to get in on this conversation because the last thing the business community wants is more employees who expect to get paid merely for showing up regardless of their work performance. This doesn’t work in the real world. Why should schools expect it to work for them?
I couldnt explain it better myself Brian. Why work hard when if you squeak by it gives the same result?
Carol, this is great that you are doing this and getting the necessary changes made.My daughter Hope ended up having to re-take environmental science which she had a 105 average in and another class that she had a B average in because she was unable to attend a Saturday school. Now as a senior, she had to re-do her entire schedule and will not graduate with the rest of her class. She must take summer school before she can graduate. It was very demeaning for her, especially since she had great grades. She had missed too many days last year due to illness. We aren’t rich and can’t afford to take her to the doctor every time she has a fever, or a really bad sore throat. Hope has a low immunity and she gets sick easily. She used up several of her alloted days because she had heart palpitations that would come on suddenly and she had to wear a heart monitor so we could figure out what was happening or what the cause was.. These were good reasons for her not to attend class. We tried to talk to her guidance counselor, but we were told we needed doctors notes for all of her absences. We felt like slackers and we were made to feel like we were irresponsible parents. On the contrary, we love our children enough to keep them home when they are sick, and we certainly don’t want to pass any germs onto others. Besides, how many high school 10th graders do you think would want to wear a heart monitor to class that makes a long loud beeeep when your heart is racing, then would have to excuse themselves to the nurse so the recording of her heart could be sent via phone to the doctor. My daughter experienced that embarrassing incident just once in class. That’s all it took .I believe there should be more respect given to us as parents to make the judgement call and accept our note as a good enough excuse, ESPECIALLY if our child is getting good grades in school. So there’s my two cents, feel free to forward my story to whoever you like.
Thank you Carol for all that you are doing in the best interest of our children.
Pamela Turman
There was NO need to change the policy at the beginning of the year. Why change something that is doing ok in the first place? What I don’t get about the policy is if you are out of school sick, but with something that didn’t need a trip to the doctor, therefore you have no doctor’s note to say you were sick.
I am a straight A student at FCHS. I love my school but I think the attendance policy is absolutely ridiculous. I had swine flu when it came around and I missed four days and had to come back to school still feeling sick and not being truly well because I knew even with my doctors note I would not be excused and I can’t afford to lose my exemptions over attending Saturday school (if you have to attend Saturday school, seniors automatically lose exemption privileges, even with an A in the class). So I went back to school sick, and I can’t miss any more days in that nine weeks. I think as a student, this policy is ludicrous. I understand the administration is trying to help students who wait until the last minute to get Saturday school in but to me that is a personal problem.