Freeport School News
May 9, 2002 Draft Attendance Policy

Freeport Public Schools

Attendance

The Board of Education recognizes that regular school attendance is a major component of academic success. Through implementation of this policy, the Board expects to reduce the current level of unexcused absences tardiness, and early departures (all are referred to in this policy as "ATEDS"), encourage full attendance by all students, maintain an adequate attendance recordkeeping system, identify patterns of student ATEDs, develop effective intervention strategies, and communicate with parents to improve school attendance.

Notice

To be successful in this endeavor, it is imperative that all members of the school community are aware of this policy, its purpose, procedures and the consequences of non-compliance. To ensure that students, parents, teachers and administrators are notified of and understand this policy, the following procedures will be implemented.

• The attendance policy will be included in student handbooks and will be reviewed with students at the start of the school year.

• Parents will receive a plain language summary of this policy by mail before the start of the school year. Parents will be asked to sign and return a statement indicating that they have read and understood the policy.

When a student is absent, tardy, or leaves early from class or school without an excuse, designated staff members will notify the student’s parents by phone and mail of the specific ATED, remind them of the attendance policy, and review ATED intervention procedures with them.

• A back-to-school event will be held at the beginning of each school year to explain this policy and stress the parents’ responsibility for their ensuring their children’s attendance.

• School newsletters and publications will include periodic reminders of the components of this policy.

• The district will provide annually a copy of the attendance policy and any

amendments thereto to faculty and staff New staff will receive a copy of the policy upon their employment.

• All faculty and staff will meet at the beginning of each school year to review the attendance policy and to clarify individual roles in its implementation.

• Copies of this policy will also be made available to any community member, upon request.

An excused ATEDs is defined as an absence, tardiness, and an early departure from class or school because of personal illness, illness or death in the family, impassable roads or severe inclement weather, religious observance, quarantine, required court appearances, attendance at health clinics, approved college visits, approved cooperative work programs, military obligations, or such other reasons as may be approved.

All other ATEDs arc considered unexcused.

All ATEDs must be accounted. It is the parent’s responsibility to notify the school office on the day of any ATED and to provide a written excuse upon the student’s return to school. If a written note is not received within five (5) school days, the ATED will automatically be recorded as unexcused.

• Attendance procedures and data collection will be the responsibility of and will be verified by each building principal

• Attendance will be taken during each class period (secondary level only).

• Attendance will be taken daily in each elementary school.

• All attendance information will be compiled and provided to the designated staff members responsible for attendance no later than the conclusion of each class period or school day.

• The nature of an ATED will be coded on a student’s record.

• Student ATED data will be available to and will be reviewed by the designated school personnel in an expeditious manner. Each building principal will appoint an attendance coordinator.

• Where additional information is received that requires corrections to be made to a student’s attendance records, such correction will be made immediately. Notice of such a change will be sent to appropriate school personnel subject to applicable confidentiality rules.

• Attendance data will be analyzed regularly by the building principal to identify patterns or trends in student absences.

• Where consistent with other school practices, teachers and staff will request a pass from students in the hallways. Students without a pass will immediately be referred to the Building Principal or his/her designee.

• The principal will ensure that continuous monitoring will be conducted to identify students who are absent, tardy, or who leave class or school early and will ensure that parents will be promptly notified.

Attendance Incentives

• Each school will design and implement systems at the building and classroom levels to acknowledge a student’s efforts to maintain or improve attendance.

Unexcused ATEDs will result in disciplinary action consistent with the district’s code of conduct. Those penalties may include, for example, detention ~j in-school suspension. Students may also be denied the privilege of participating in or attending extracurricular events. Individual school building principals will design procedures to implement the above.

In addition, designated staff members will communicate with the student’s parents and the student’s guidance counselor within 48 hours when determination of an unexcused absence has occurred. Pattern absences and excessive absences should be in the purview of the attendance coordinator and referred to the guidance counselor for follow-up. Such staff members will remind parents of the attendance policy, explain the ramifications of unexcused ATEDs, stress the importance of class attendance, and discuss appropriate intervention strategies to correct the situation.

The Board of Education recognizes an important relationship between class attendance and student preference. Consequently, each marking period, a student’s final grade may be based on classroom participation as well as student’s performance on homework, tests, papers, projects, etc.

Students are expected to attend all scheduled classes. Consistent with the importance of classroom participation, unexcused ATEDs will affect a student’s class participation grade for the marking period.

At the secondary level (grades 7-12), any student with more than eight (8) unexcused ATEDs for one-half year or sixteen (16) unexcused ATEDs for a full year will not receive credit for that course. In addition, the student will not be allowed to attend summer school to make up course credit However, students with properly excused ATEDs may make up the work for each ATED, and those ATEDs will not count toward the minimum attendance standard.

At the elementary level, parents of students who have accumulated 20 or more unexcused ATEDS (5 per marking period), will be notified by the building principal no later than the conclusion of each marking period that lack of attendance will have a serious impact on their child’s ability to meet the New York State learning standards.

The Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction will develop appropriate procedures to address poor attendance for those elementary students (grades Pre-K-6) designated above.

To ensure that parents and students are aware of the implications of this minimum attendance requirement, the teacher or other designated staff member(s) will advise the student and contact the parent(s) by telephone and mail at appropriate intervals prior to the student reaching eight (8) or sixteen (16) unexcused ATEDs.

Students who are unable to attend school or a class on a given day because of their participation in a school-sponsored activity (i.e. music lessons, field trips), must arrange with their teachers to make up any work missed. This also applies to any student who is absent, tardy or leaves early from school or a class because of illness or any other excused reason.

Only those students with excused ATEDs will be given the opportunity to make up a test or other missed work and/or turn in a late assignment for inclusion in their final grade. Make up work must be completed by a date specified by the student’s teacher for the class in question.

When the District provides a secondary summer school program, the following attendance policy will apply:

• Every student will receive notification of the policy/procedure on summer school attendance when he or she registers.

• -Attendance will be taken on during each class period.+

• When a student has three (3) ATEDS, the student will be dropped from the course.

The Board will annually review building and district level student attendance records, and, if such records show a decline in student attendance, the Board will direct that appropriate action to reverse the decline be implemented.

Ref Education Law §§1709; 3024; 3025; 3202; 3205-3213; 3225

8 NYCRR §§l04.1; 175.6

Adoption date: