The Board of Education believes that regular attendance is essential to achieving success in school.  Education is a total process based upon continual communication and shared responsibilities among parents, students, teachers and school.  As students mature and progress through the educational system, they should increasingly assume responsibility for regular attendance.  However, parents have a legal and moral responsibility to require regular attendance at school.

Rationale

1. Regular and punctual patterns of attendance will be expected of each student. The secondary student is of an age when he/she needs to learn the valuable concepts of attendance and punctuality. The lesson is important for the student’s maturation and acceptance of the responsibility for his/her actions. Good attendance helps prepare the teenager for attendance requirements placed upon an individual as an adult.
2. Students should strive to maintain a good attendance record because there is a direct relationship between school attendance and grades, citizenship, and success in school.
3. Frequent absence of students from regular classroom learning experiences disrupts the continuity of the instructional process. The school cannot teach students who are not present. The entire process of education requires a regular continuity of instruction, classroom participation, learning experiences, and study in order to reach the goal of maximum educational benefits for each individual student. The regular contact of the students with one another in the classroom and their participation in well planned instructional activities under the supervision of a competent teacher are vital to this purpose.
4. The attendance policy exists with only the intent to help students and to maintain the rationale for which it exists. It is recognized that absence from school may be necessary under certain conditions. However, every effort should be made by students, parents/guardians, teachers, and administrators to keep absences and tardiness to a minimum.