School trustees adopt attendance policy

Loss of semester credit no longer will hang over students' heads if they miss more than eight days of classes at Flathead High School next year.

However, standards to judge those absences have been tightened, and if an absence is considered unexcused, students missing nine or more days of a class cannot make up the work for credit.

But as an incentive - after the school board chairman's campaign to persuade his fellow trustees to reject the provision - students with two or fewer absences in a semester will be exempt from taking semester tests.

Flathead Principal Callie Langohr on Tuesday night presented the eighth and final draft of the school's revised attendance policy, a result of four months of work initiated by the Flathead Faculty Senate.

The school board approved the revised work Tuesday night after asking Langohr last month to fine-tune the proposal.

Teachers, frustrated with last semester's 29-percent absenteeism - 498 out of 1,740 students had nine or more excused or unexcused absences in at least one class - took up the issue during Faculty Senate meetings during March. They presented their unanimous recommendation to the high school administration April 21.

"They wanted a serious and assertive response to attendance concerns," Langohr said.

The proposal passed muster with more than a dozen other faculty leaders, she said, before the final draft went to the school board during June.

"The policy needs to be simple, straightforward and clean," and give everyone a fair shot at compliance, regardless of economic status, she said.

By deleting an appeals process, the new policy not only sets firm standards applied equally to all students, Langohr said, but it eliminates unproductive paperwork.

Its goal, she added, is to change students' behaviors by encouraging them to be in class consistently.

"This draft is as close as we can get at this time to changing student behavior," she said.

Trustee Anna Marie Bailey argued against listing specific examples for unexcused absences, "such as skip days, shopping … banking … oversleeping … or manicure appointments," among others.

Naming instances, Bailey said, opens the door for students to argue that their excuses are acceptable if not on the list.

"The more they know, the better they do," Langohr said, noting the provision has proved its worth in the past. "Some really don't realize manicures aren't appropriate."

Assistant Principal Mark Dennehy agreed.

"Students miss for all kinds of reasons," Dennehy said. "They are not valuing what we are doing."

Rigor and relevance of class work is increasing, the administrators said, but an attendance policy is what will keep the students in school to value the change. Ultimately, trustees and Langohr agreed to preface the short list with the phrase "Examples include, but are not limited to …"

Bailey also argued against a provision calling for family vacations to be taken only during school vacations, absences that Langohr explained she addresses on a case-by-case basis, and was pleased to hear that school-sponsored absences such as student-council meetings and activities will be limited next year.

Chairman Don Murray made the case to remove the semester-test exemption as an attendance incentive.

"It is inconceivable for us children of the '60s to think it's OK to miss school for shopping," Murray said. "To say, 'If you come (to school) you don't have to take the tests,' just reinforces the low value" some students place on class attendance.

He said the decision to include the semester-test incentive fails on three fronts - that all options have been considered, that the test exemption is the best, and that there is proof of its effectiveness.

"We are surrendering a tool to bribe kids to stay in their chairs," he said, "and I'm not sure that is the best tool to sacrifice."

Supporting Langohr's goal of having no need for an attendance policy because curriculum eventually becomes relevant and challenging, trustee Ivan Lorentzen pinned at least part of the blame on the school.

"It's our inability to provide something that engages kids at school," Lorentzen said. "This carrot and stick is not the whole policy. So if the faculty can work with it, let's go with it."

A 25-year veteran of teaching, Lorentzen said he often did not need a test to grade a student fairly and accurately, based on the student's entire body of work.

"I'm not sure a semester test is that crucial," Lorentzen said. "I think a kid can be very successful in life without ever having taken a semester test."

Trustees approved the policy by a 9-1 vote, with Murray dissenting and Bill Sutton unable to attend the meeting.

Langohr promised she would return with revisions if the policy does not work, but trustees formalized that intent by including a provision for a review at the end of the year.

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