Emphasis placed on school attendance
By Sam Waller
The Texas Compulsory Attendance Law which mandates that students attend a minimum number of minutes each semester to receive credit for courses taken, and parents and students are reminded of the importance of school attendance.
The state law requires students to be in attendance at least 90 percent of all planned days per school year to receive credit. The law previously was based on a minimum of 180 school days, but was changed five years ago to be calculated in minimum number of minutes of class time. Districts can now determine how many days are used to cover the required number of contact minutes.
While stressing the importance of attendance, Albany Junior/Senior High principal Glen Hill said illness, either during cold and flu season or from COVID-19, can impact the situation.
“In the world we live in right now, you don’t force students to be here if they’re sick because you don’t want sickness to spread,” Hill said. “If a kid’s sick, take him to the doctor and let the health professional make that determination.”
Whether excused or unexcused, Hill said, absences make it more difficult for students to keep up with course work.
“When students miss, they have to make up assignments and work extra hard to get caught up,” he said. “They’ve got holes and gaps in the information they need to do the next day’s work, and that makes it really difficult. If they miss two or three days, it takes a long time to get caught up, and that’s something kids don’t realize.”
Hill said returning from the holiday break also makes it difficult to get back into the daily school routine.
“We’re getting ready to review for STAAR tests, and any day missed is a detriment to the student,” he said. “And it puts extra work on the teachers. Other students are moving on, and teachers have to go back and get the ones who were out caught up on what they missed.”
Hill said the district offers Saturday School once each six weeks to give students an opportunity to make up missed time.
The problem, Hill said, is when students accumulate too many absences due to truancy.
“With truancy, there are a lot more steps,” he said. “In the past, if a student wasn’t here 90 percent of the time, we filed truancy. Now, we have to send a letter and make contact after three absences, then do it again at six and again at nine. There are a lot of things we have to do.”
Hill said the school district takes steps to avoid filing truancy charges.
“The goal is not to file truancy,” he said. “The goal is for that to be a reminder to parents that it is important for their children to be here, not only for their academics but also for state compulsory attendance. To get credit, we need to make sure that they’re here.”
Hill said truancy is not a serious problem locally and that many can be easily resolved.
“What we battle a lot of times is just getting doctor’s notes in,” he said. “Nine times out of 10, whenever I start that process, parents will have doctor’s notes and get those turned in. A lot of times, it’s a reminder to get those cleaned up so those absences can be changed to excused.”
Students at Nancy Smith Elementary School who have excessive absences are also required to make up the time to receive credit. They can do so through the campus’ after-school Cub Academy program, but attendance at Saturday School or summer school may be needed to meet requirements.
