Attendance Matters!

Kimberley Cowell, Assistant Principal Guidance Department

Once again this year, the Guidance Department is making an effort to cut down on student tardiness to class and so, we are going to continue with assigning Saturday School for five tardies or more. Students can be dropped from the class at the eighth tardy. We will continue to help students understand the importance of being in class on time so they don’t miss valuable instruction time.
A reminder to all: Unexcused absences will be recorded for each class on semester transcripts. The correlation between attendance and academic success is so strong that we feel we need to underline the importance of being in class on time by making the attendance record part of the student’s permanent record.
At this point, I should emphasize some basic points about the district’s attendance policy so that no one has any doubt about expectations or procedures.

• Attendance is taken and recorded each period. Absences will accrue in a period, even if the class a student attends in that period changes. It is VITAL that students attend the classes they are scheduled for, even if they plan to make changes, until those changes are officially entered. Absences will not start from zero in a period when a class change has been made. “I was changing my schedule” will not erase absences. An absence is an absence regardless of whether it was an absence from English or History.
• Parents must call in to excuse absences within 48 hours of a student’s return to class. Call 354- 8210. The message should include your name (please speak slowly and spell your last name) and relationship to the student, the time and date you are calling, the student’s name, grade level, date of absence and the reason for the absence. Please be as concise as possible.
• An automatic dialer calls home when a student is recorded as absent for a given period or periods. The purpose of the call is to give students and parents a “heads-up” that absences have been entered so that, if there are errors, these can be corrected the following day. Do not ignore the dialer’s message.
• Students may be dropped from any class in which they have accrued five absences or eight tardies.

For more detailed information please see the Student Handbook, which is posted on-line at www.gunn.pausd.org.