Many can remember when the Walpole High School Administration implented an attendance policy that prevented students, especially seniors, from taking too many unexcused absences. Essentially, if the students were absent too many times, their numerical term grades were decreased. Over the summer, the administration reassessed the policy and decided to change it to raise the number of unexcused absences from a specific course before a student loses course credit. Unfortunately, this leniency does not fix a broken policy.
The new Walpole High School Attendance Policy is now based upon the number of absences from each different class that a student is allowed, instead of upon the number of absences for entire school days. Unlike last year, students are now allowed to miss six classes (per class) during each semester, and students who exceed the six unexcused absences permitted per class during the semester will not receive credit in that class. It is different, however, for a second semester senior. If a senior has more than five absences, instead of six, in a class, they will obtain no credits for the semester–which could prevent them from graduating in the spring. For courses that meet only two or three periods per cycle, more than three absences will result in no credit for that course.
By changing the punishment for exceeding the set amount of absences from penalizing a student’s grades to taking away credits, the administration is trying to separate behavior from actual schoolwork. The way they are doing it, however, seems ineffective. Taking away a student’s credits for missing a handful of classes during a semester seems to be an unfair punishment for the student, who may not have had a choice in missing those classes. Losing credits, in the long run, could really affect a student’s ability to graduate if more than a couple of points are taken off a grade in a certain class.
Compared to last year though, this policy is fairly lenient. The rigid policy of last year (only three absences per term) made missing school a difficult burden. It is easier to miss a few days of school consecutively without having to worry about going over the limit of three days a term. Junior Ali Ajemian is particularly happy about this part of the new attendance policy. “I’m the type of person who gets sick so easily, but I’m never bad enough to go to the doctor’s. I don’t want to come to school sometimes and risk getting others sick, so I just stay home. This policy makes it easier for me to not worry about exceeding the limit too quickly,” said Ajemian. Many other students feel the same about this less-stringent policy.
Though this new policy makes missing school less of a burden than last years, it makes it very hard for students to keep track of their absences. If a student misses, for example, four days of school, they are missing a total of 20 classes, but not all of the students classes meet each day. Some of their classes may have only met three of the days, making it confusing to keep track of how much class a student has actually missed while being absent. The new policy also makes dismissals a problem for some students. Many students, who are suffering from a mild sickness (not sick enough to go to the doctors, but sick enough to be lethargic during school), would attend school for a couple of hours in the morning, but get dismissed by parents after 11:00 AM, which enabled them to get credit for coming to school. With the new policy, however, those students are unable to get the credit for coming to school. Their attendance record will be affected by the classes they miss instead of by the school day.
The new attendance policy, though beneficial in some aspects compared to the past policy, is still seen as a burden to many students. Mandating that students attend a specific number of classes per semester or else get credits taken away from a specific course is unnecessary and could lead to problems for those students who tend to miss a lot of school, but still get passing grades. If a student has the ability to be absent and maintain great grades, then the administration should not be able to punish them for that and potentially inhibit their ability to graduate from high school.
