John Stafford ’13
Staff

You know what sounds like a great idea? Punishing kids for being sick from school! Whether it be a bad case of the flu or a bad case of senioritis, six absences is all we have to utilize per trimester. Unless we have “extenuating circumstances” we are not allowed to miss school after we have six excused absences. Why even excuse it if you’re still going to fall victim to the dreaded truancy officer? Doesn’t sound very excused to me.

The handbook says that we can lose credit in a class if we have over six absences. It doesn’t matter how well you’re doing in all of your classes, you’re still in danger of not receiving credit. What purpose is this serving us? It’s claimed that it’s preparing us for “employers and institutions of higher education,” Is forcing us to go to school when we’re sick to make everyone around us miserable the best way of doing that? Think about it this way: if school was a job and you completed all of your work, would they really care if you stayed at home to do it?

What really gets my goat is that even if you’re doing “A” work, you still have the chance to fail the class. What does it matter if I’m not actively in the classroom learning? It would seem that I’m doing fine without being in attendance and possibly starting an epidemic. Why are grades held to our attendance and not to the quality of our work? If you’re turning your assignments in and testing well, why should you get less than an A for doing “A” work?

I kind of understand the tardy policy. We get a fairly decent amount of time for our class-to-class commutes, but is coming in a minute or two late really that big of a deal? Many teachers act like it’s some kind of personal attack if we show up late to their class. It isn’t an interruption to the class unless you actively interrupt the class to deal with it. The process is simple: the student walks in and sits down. There’s no need to make a federal case about it.

I say that there needs to be some kind of change to how this school, and schools in general, handle attendance issues. It should be left to the discretion of the student whether or not they have show up every day. There’s a reason disease spreads like wildfire in schools, and it isn’t because our undying desire to be here makes us forget that we’re contagious little germ mongers. Many kids know when they’re sick, but they don’t want to miss school. So good luck when the zombie viruses start spreading, because a bad case of the zombies is better than a run in with the ever-fearsome truancy officer.