Noah Southerland, sophomore, missed school last Thursday and Friday due to illness and recovered over the weekend.
He said it was fortunate that his illness overlapped with a long holiday weekend.
“It’s definitely a little bit troubling that if something like that were to happen again, I would have been in a comparatively bad place,” he said.
This is because this school year, the administration has changed attendance and Ac Lab policies to crack down on students who are repeatedly missing school or who are late to class. One such change is teachers will no longer teach lessons during Ac Lab to students who missed class.
Southerland said changes such as this may have some unintended consequences.
“In a lot of circumstances, when somebody is absent from school it is outside of their hands,” he said. “It shouldn’t be a punishment upon them.”
Sophomore Principal Kyle Devine said the administration is also cracking down on tardies and absences this year. A full list of the changes can be found in Parent Square in an announcement that was sent out last week
“When kids are out of class, they’re not getting the information that they need to be successful. That teacher is now having to find a way, a new way, of trying to get that information to the student,” Devine said.
Devine said the school needs structure and organization to make sure students are where they need to be at the correct time and so teachers can start class on time. He said every Friday the grade-level offices will push out tardy warnings to students. Disciplinary action will be taken if a student meets or exceeds three tardies.
Last year Devine found that repeated absences were from the same students.
“It’s always that same exact kid who’s disrupting the other 30 kids trying to learn.” Devine said.
Darcy Hachmeister, math department chair, said it is important for students to be on time in her class because she starts right when the bell rings. If they miss the first part of class, they miss time to ask questions over homework for that night.
“If I am starting a new lesson, they miss that initial foundation that sets up the whole lesson, so then they are going to be behind,” Hachmeister said.
Hachmeister said that in her math classes, some of her students completely miss class because they think they can just use the online notes or watch videos to learn the material.
Hachmeister said she purposefully does not post videos or filled-in notes anymore to encourage her students to come to class.
“If they are not there, they miss the little nuances that I talk about, those problems off to the left or to the right, where it’s a discussion and not me just doing problems up on the board,” Hachmeister said. “There is so much more learning and understanding happening in the classroom versus just copying down notes or watching a video.”
Hachmeister said she hopes students will do what they are supposed to do: get to class on time and go to class.
“School is not about roaming the halls or skipping class. It’s about getting in the classroom and learning,” Hachmeister said.
