Flathead principal urges approval of attendance policy

If approved by Kalispell school trustees in July, a revised attendance policy proposed at Flathead High School would remove the semester credit-loss penalty for missing more than eight days.

In a fundamental change in philosophy about what motivates students to be in class, Flathead High Principal Callie Langohr revamped her school's attendance policy.

Currently, students who miss nine days or more during one semester in any given class lose all credit for the course but still are urged to continue attending for the sake of learning. That eight-day limit was lowered from 10 days during the second semester of the 1999-2000 school year.

The problem was that students had little incentive to continue attending class if they knew it was for no academic credit.

Under the new proposal, they would be allowed eight absences. On the ninth and successive days missed in a given class, they would receive a "zero" for that day's work and lose any chance to make it up.

In addition, if a student has two or fewer excused absences during a semester, he or she would not be required to take the semester test during finals week. Students with unexcused absences, skips or out-of-school and in-school suspensions on their records, however, still would have to take the semester tests.

With more latitude for regaining credit, the appeals process for absentee penalties also was eliminated.

Langohr presented this and a series of other attendance policy changes to Kalispell school trustees Tuesday night.

In addition to the above categories, and the existing ones for school-sponsored absences, family deaths, jury duty and subpoenas, Langohr added three new categories - post-secondary/military visits, community-sponsored (such as Girls State or Boys State), and Running Start/tech prep absences for college academics.

She also added what she called "gray-out dates" for school-sponsored travel - not allowing class or club trips during semester change-over, testing periods and the final days of the school year. The revision also would allow only one day of missed school for travel, encouraging teachers to make use of school breaks when scheduling trips.

Several trustees questioned the wisdom of exempting students from semester tests.

Board Chairman Don Murray pointed to the day when school attendance simply was expected, and enticing them to class by dangling a test-exemption carrot goes against that ethic.

"Testing is the most rigorous thing we do all year, so it's hard to justify excusing them from it," when attendance should be a given, Murray said. "We all face rigor in what we do, whether in business or in school."

Langohr will bring back her revised attendance proposal at the July 12 school board meeting.

In other business, the school board:

-Heard plans from lead teacher Clark Krantz for a pair of new animal science facilities at the H.E. Robinson Vocational Agriculture center. They will replace three century-old buildings, one of which will be within 10 feet of the bank after a Stillwater River bank reclamation project this fall. The project, funded with as much as $85,000 in grant money, a requested $20,000 from a reserve fund in the school's account and other money from the Flathead FFA Chapter, would build one animal facility with a demonstration/teaching area and a hog facility that could be kept separate as a way to control odors and waste.

"We don't have something that's broken out there," trustee Tony Dawson endorsed the project. "In fact, we have just the opposite. We have a program that turns out these incredible kids."

-Approved the final construction manager at risk contract for Glacier High School to Swank Enterprises. The contract provides 5.74 percent management fees, $16,400 in preconstruction fees and 10.28 percent in general condition expenses such as building permits, heat, water, cleanup and other construction operations. Two more construction management contracts will follow, for the middle school and for renovations at Flathead High.

Swank automatically has the authority to award the contract for site grading, utilities and pavement work at Glacier High school to JTL Group, the low bidder at $2.13 million. Other bids came in from Nupac at $2.28 million and Schellinger at $2.59 million. Swank had estimated the work at $3.179 million.

-Approved schoolwide Title I program designations for Hedges, Elrod and Peterson elementary schools beginning this fall. A similar program has shown marked improvement among students at Russell School since it went with schoolwide Title I two years ago, Principal Darren Schlepp reported.

-Granted administrative salary increases, granting a 2.7 percent cost-of-living increase for most, an additional 1-percent contribution to 401(a) retirement accounts, a $525 annual flex-account contribution, an additional personal day a year, professional dues and a written provision to reflect the existing policy to pay for one professional conference a year.

Reporter Nancy Kimball can be reached at 758-4483 or by e-mail at nkimball@dailyinterlake.com.