With the new school year in full swing, GHS students are adjusting to changes in the attendance policy intended to curb chronic absenteeism.
The target set for last year was to have fewer than 35 percent of students chronically absent, and by the end of last year that number got down to 33 percent.
To build on that change, administration implemented the new attendance policy this year. Under the new rules, students who are tardy more than 5 times in a term will be given detention.
“When students are chronically absent, it starts to affect their learning ability,” GHS Principal James Cook said. “So much of life is showing up. Detention is an opportunity for a conversation. What is going on to make you tardy and what can we do to help you get to school on time?”
The levels of tardiness are broken into three tiers: the lowest being “at risk”, when a student is tardy 5-9 percent of the time. The mid-tier, “chronically tardy” refers to students who are 10 percent tardy. “Severely chronically tardy”, the highest level, is when a student is tardy 20 percent of the time.
“[We are] seeing more urgency in the morning,” Cook said. “The period after 7:30 to 7:40 is less busy.”
The new policy also addresses non-athletes, as it was only athletes who had major punishments regarding attendance in years prior. Being tardy for an athlete is more detrimental as they’re not able to participate in their sport that day. Now however, non-athletes must also prioritize tardiness in order to avoid getting detention.
“There is enough punishment on student-athletes as it is,” student athlete Maddie Jewell said. “When you live far away traffic can get bad some days, it makes it really difficult because you have a consequence for a whole day and sometimes two.”
The portion of the policy which regards absenteeism has the same tiers as the tardy policy. Each tier has individual consequences, the highest being for severely chronically absent students who miss 4+ days a month, and must follow an attendance improvement plan.
Absenteeism in individual classes is also included in the new policy. If a student has not gone to class until after 11:00 a.m. they do not get credit for that day; this is in hopes of increasing period attendance. Dismissals are also affected by this, as students who are dismissed before 11:00 a.m. are listed as absent for that day.
Although absenteeism is a prominent issue within the school system, GHS’s new attendance policy brings students one step closer to the school’s desired attendance rate.
