Grading & Reporting Updates for SY 2026-2027

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Attendance: Absences from skipping class disqualify for make-up work.

How on earth does MCPS plan on identifying, assessing and discerning which absences are legitimately due to skipping and not errors on their part due to subs not knowing how to take attendance, teachers forgetting to do attendance, or tardies being mistakenly marked as absences?

There's no way they have the scale and manpower to do this.

As a teacher I can do this by requiring a student submit proof of excused absence when they attempt to turn in the assignment late. I'm not denying them from doing it. I'm just denying them from getting credit for it when they can't prove that it was excused. It's not hard to produce a doctors note, e-mail from guidance, teacher, coach, administrator, etc. A parent writing a note saying "Student overslept" is not an excused note.

You are not living in the real world. My limited emails to the guidance counselor for legitimate things go into the abyss with no response at least half the time. I would never bother them with this. I don’t drag my kid to the doctor (and pay for the visit out of pocket due to my high deductible plan) the second he has a fever/virus, but I do keep him home and treat with rest/fluids. You want an obituary emailed to you if grandma dies and he’s out to attend the funeral?

If you call the school and let them know your child is sick, it will be marked as excused. If you don't do this, it will be marked as unexcused. Call the attendance secretary or send in a note. It is that simple.

I can tell you that year to date, in my HS between all 5 of my classes, I have probably seen less than 20 occasions where a student in my class was assigned an Illness code by the school attendance secretary. That means parents aren't calling. If you can't do your minimal responsibility then I'm not doing anything extra either. It's not my job to find out why your kid isn't in class. Everyone is unexcused until someone provides me with an excuse.

This night make sense if you were doing something that penalized the parents themselves, but it doesn't really seem fair for some kids to get worse grades than others based on whether or not their parent prioritizes (or even understands the importance of) calling in an excused absence.

+1 this is like penalizing kindergartners for tardiness when they are obviously not driving themselves or walking alone to school.

A kindergartner not being able to make up work after an absence is not a huge deal. It is a huge deal for a student taking a high school class needed for graduation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Attendance: Absences from skipping class disqualify for make-up work.

How on earth does MCPS plan on identifying, assessing and discerning which absences are legitimately due to skipping and not errors on their part due to subs not knowing how to take attendance, teachers forgetting to do attendance, or tardies being mistakenly marked as absences?

There's no way they have the scale and manpower to do this.

If a teacher does not take attendance, the default is present. Therefore this will not hurt (might actually help) the student.

If a sub does not take attendance, the default is present. Same as above, it will not hurt the student.

Tardies are only marked as absent if the student is too late to be marked as present. I believe the cut off is if they miss half the class, it is marked as absent. This will need to be looked into. There should be a way for the teacher to mark the time that the student arrived so that it can be checked later if needed.

There is a way for us to do that at teachers. In synergy we can add a comment or note to the student's profile where we can indicate that the student arrived at a specific time. Some teachers in my school are really good about doing that, especially for students with documented issues with attendance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Attendance: Absences from skipping class disqualify for make-up work.

How on earth does MCPS plan on identifying, assessing and discerning which absences are legitimately due to skipping and not errors on their part due to subs not knowing how to take attendance, teachers forgetting to do attendance, or tardies being mistakenly marked as absences?

There's no way they have the scale and manpower to do this.

I'm not following. Is this not how things were when you were a kid? High Schools have an attendance secretary who puts the parent phone calls/notes into the system. It's not hard and could even be mostly automated, with parents put in an electronic absence.

The reason it's a mess right now is that there's been literally no distinction (at our school at least) between excused and unexcused. So parents (I) don't even inform the school most of the time. And when I remember to send the kid with a note upon return, the kid also never turns it in. Why bother? If they tell me it will matter, I'll start doing it again.

If a kid is tardy and it's recorded as an absence, the kid approaches the teacher to fix it (and hopefully tries not to be tardy in the future). There's no 'scale' problem. There's only a problem of kids not tracking their absences, and it would be a good thing to teach them this responsibility.

[Anonymous]

The grading and reporting regulation is not about excused vs. unexcused. Even work for unexcused absences can be made up. It's about whether a student is on campus but skipping class. Here is a link to the version for comment:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/19cDQr7J7LodmaYl2hkqHTFsrtbGxBML4/view

See (f) on page 13. "Allowing makeup work, regardless of most reasons for the student's absence. Students found to be in school and skipping classes will not be provided the makeup work opportunity and will receive a zero for the assignment/assessment. School administration will work collaboratively with the teacher to make the final determination of whether the class skipping infraction and the related consequences should apply."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Attendance: Absences from skipping class disqualify for make-up work.

How on earth does MCPS plan on identifying, assessing and discerning which absences are legitimately due to skipping and not errors on their part due to subs not knowing how to take attendance, teachers forgetting to do attendance, or tardies being mistakenly marked as absences?

There's no way they have the scale and manpower to do this.

It’s actually pretty easy to identify. Either we mark them as unexcused absent or the system already shows the absence as “excused.” If the absence isn’t planned, parents can submit a note if the child was really sick or another legitimate reason identified by the student handbook to the attendance office. The teachers can then see it’s excused, and voila, the kid can make up the work.

This was actually policy and it DID work for many years until we got too soft with COVID.

I bet this PP is just a 17 year old who’s pissed they can’t skip to get McDonalds anymore.

You did not address the staff errors. I’m not a kid and I have firsthand experience with subs not knowing how to take attendance and marking my kid absent, or teachers making a mistake. I know it was a mistake because when I emailed teachers to inquire about the absences they would apologize and correct it.

As a regular sub at high schools, one thing we can do is take attendance. Many kids try to use “I had a sub” when they skip class. I always repeat several times the names of kids marked absent, so there are no mistakes. Now, if a kid says they need to go to the bathroom at the start of class and then are gone for the rest of the period - he/she is marked absent. I let the attendance secretary know the circumstances.

This. Kids skip all the time and pretend that the sub messed up

So they are saying they were there, but the sub messed up and marked them absent? Then this one should be easy. If they were there then they would have turned in the work and it can be graded. If they were there but were skipping class, then the work wouldn't be turned in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The grading and reporting regulation is not about excused vs. unexcused. Even work for unexcused absences can be made up. It's about whether a student is on campus but skipping class. Here is a link to the version for comment:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/19cDQr7J7LodmaYl2hkqHTFsrtbGxBML4/view

See (f) on page 13. "Allowing makeup work, regardless of most reasons for the student's absence. Students found to be in school and skipping classes will not be provided the makeup work opportunity and will receive a zero for the assignment/assessment. School administration will work collaboratively with the teacher to make the final determination of whether the class skipping infraction and the related consequences should apply."

So if the kid is skipping school but is not caught red handed roaming the halls but instead walked out of the building and it’s just an unidentified unexcused absence, then teacher would have to allow the make up?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The grading and reporting regulation is not about excused vs. unexcused. Even work for unexcused absences can be made up. It's about whether a student is on campus but skipping class. Here is a link to the version for comment:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/19cDQr7J7LodmaYl2hkqHTFsrtbGxBML4/view

See (f) on page 13. "Allowing makeup work, regardless of most reasons for the student's absence. Students found to be in school and skipping classes will not be provided the makeup work opportunity and will receive a zero for the assignment/assessment. School administration will work collaboratively with the teacher to make the final determination of whether the class skipping infraction and the related consequences should apply."

So if the kid is skipping school but is not caught red handed roaming the halls but instead walked out of the building and it’s just an unidentified unexcused absence, then teacher would have to allow the make up?

By my read, if the teacher suspects the kid of skipping, they would have to bring it to the administration, which would make the determination.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Attendance: Absences from skipping class disqualify for make-up work.

How on earth does MCPS plan on identifying, assessing and discerning which absences are legitimately due to skipping and not errors on their part due to subs not knowing how to take attendance, teachers forgetting to do attendance, or tardies being mistakenly marked as absences?

There's no way they have the scale and manpower to do this.

It’s actually pretty easy to identify. Either we mark them as unexcused absent or the system already shows the absence as “excused.” If the absence isn’t planned, parents can submit a note if the child was really sick or another legitimate reason identified by the student handbook to the attendance office. The teachers can then see it’s excused, and voila, the kid can make up the work.

This was actually policy and it DID work for many years until we got too soft with COVID.

I bet this PP is just a 17 year old who’s pissed they can’t skip to get McDonalds anymore.

You did not address the staff errors. I’m not a kid and I have firsthand experience with subs not knowing how to take attendance and marking my kid absent, or teachers making a mistake. I know it was a mistake because when I emailed teachers to inquire about the absences they would apologize and correct it.

As a regular sub at high schools, one thing we can do is take attendance. Many kids try to use “I had a sub” when they skip class. I always repeat several times the names of kids marked absent, so there are no mistakes. Now, if a kid says they need to go to the bathroom at the start of class and then are gone for the rest of the period - he/she is marked absent. I let the attendance secretary know the circumstances.

This. Kids skip all the time and pretend that the sub messed up

So they are saying they were there, but the sub messed up and marked them absent? Then this one should be easy. If they were there then they would have turned in the work and it can be graded. If they were there but were skipping class, then the work wouldn't be turned in.

Almost all assignments are posted on Canvas. You can skip class and still have access to whatever was done in class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Attendance: Absences from skipping class disqualify for make-up work.

How on earth does MCPS plan on identifying, assessing and discerning which absences are legitimately due to skipping and not errors on their part due to subs not knowing how to take attendance, teachers forgetting to do attendance, or tardies being mistakenly marked as absences?

There's no way they have the scale and manpower to do this.

It’s actually pretty easy to identify. Either we mark them as unexcused absent or the system already shows the absence as “excused.” If the absence isn’t planned, parents can submit a note if the child was really sick or another legitimate reason identified by the student handbook to the attendance office. The teachers can then see it’s excused, and voila, the kid can make up the work.

This was actually policy and it DID work for many years until we got too soft with COVID.

I bet this PP is just a 17 year old who’s pissed they can’t skip to get McDonalds anymore.

You did not address the staff errors. I’m not a kid and I have firsthand experience with subs not knowing how to take attendance and marking my kid absent, or teachers making a mistake. I know it was a mistake because when I emailed teachers to inquire about the absences they would apologize and correct it.

As a regular sub at high schools, one thing we can do is take attendance. Many kids try to use “I had a sub” when they skip class. I always repeat several times the names of kids marked absent, so there are no mistakes. Now, if a kid says they need to go to the bathroom at the start of class and then are gone for the rest of the period - he/she is marked absent. I let the attendance secretary know the circumstances.

This. Kids skip all the time and pretend that the sub messed up

So they are saying they were there, but the sub messed up and marked them absent? Then this one should be easy. If they were there then they would have turned in the work and it can be graded. If they were there but were skipping class, then the work wouldn't be turned in.

Almost all assignments are posted on Canvas. You can skip class and still have access to whatever was done in class.

Yes, but then it wouldn't be late. The issue that the new reg seems to be addressing is kids having a quiz/test, being at school, not being prepared, and just skipping class so they can take it later.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Attendance: Absences from skipping class disqualify for make-up work.

How on earth does MCPS plan on identifying, assessing and discerning which absences are legitimately due to skipping and not errors on their part due to subs not knowing how to take attendance, teachers forgetting to do attendance, or tardies being mistakenly marked as absences?

There's no way they have the scale and manpower to do this.

It’s actually pretty easy to identify. Either we mark them as unexcused absent or the system already shows the absence as “excused.” If the absence isn’t planned, parents can submit a note if the child was really sick or another legitimate reason identified by the student handbook to the attendance office. The teachers can then see it’s excused, and voila, the kid can make up the work.

This was actually policy and it DID work for many years until we got too soft with COVID.

I bet this PP is just a 17 year old who’s pissed they can’t skip to get McDonalds anymore.

You did not address the staff errors. I’m not a kid and I have firsthand experience with subs not knowing how to take attendance and marking my kid absent, or teachers making a mistake. I know it was a mistake because when I emailed teachers to inquire about the absences they would apologize and correct it.

As a regular sub at high schools, one thing we can do is take attendance. Many kids try to use “I had a sub” when they skip class. I always repeat several times the names of kids marked absent, so there are no mistakes. Now, if a kid says they need to go to the bathroom at the start of class and then are gone for the rest of the period - he/she is marked absent. I let the attendance secretary know the circumstances.

This. Kids skip all the time and pretend that the sub messed up

So they are saying they were there, but the sub messed up and marked them absent? Then this one should be easy. If they were there then they would have turned in the work and it can be graded. If they were there but were skipping class, then the work wouldn't be turned in.

Almost all assignments are posted on Canvas. You can skip class and still have access to whatever was done in class.

Yes, but then it wouldn't be late. The issue that the new reg seems to be addressing is kids having a quiz/test, being at school, not being prepared, and just skipping class so they can take it later.

Or skipping class so they can learn from a friend what was on it and cheat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Attendance: Absences from skipping class disqualify for make-up work.

How on earth does MCPS plan on identifying, assessing and discerning which absences are legitimately due to skipping and not errors on their part due to subs not knowing how to take attendance, teachers forgetting to do attendance, or tardies being mistakenly marked as absences?

There's no way they have the scale and manpower to do this.

It’s actually pretty easy to identify. Either we mark them as unexcused absent or the system already shows the absence as “excused.” If the absence isn’t planned, parents can submit a note if the child was really sick or another legitimate reason identified by the student handbook to the attendance office. The teachers can then see it’s excused, and voila, the kid can make up the work.

This was actually policy and it DID work for many years until we got too soft with COVID.

I bet this PP is just a 17 year old who’s pissed they can’t skip to get McDonalds anymore.

You did not address the staff errors. I’m not a kid and I have firsthand experience with subs not knowing how to take attendance and marking my kid absent, or teachers making a mistake. I know it was a mistake because when I emailed teachers to inquire about the absences they would apologize and correct it.

I didn’t address the staff errors because that is an anomaly. Could it happen? Sure. But most of the time, we assign work, and I can check to see if your kid did it (or part of it). If it’s a true error, or we don’t want to deal with a parent’s complaining, we just change it. Normally, major All Tasks aren’t given with a sub, so the work given would have little to no impact on their grade if there was an error.

To address another PP with an actual valid claim, we can tell if they are skipping if it is either 1) unexcused or 2) they were marked present for some classes and not ours. If they are absent all day or leave for part of the day for an appointment, that must get excused.

I think people on this thread forget that most of these kids are still minors. Parents have the responsibility to let the school know if the kid is out for a valid reason.

And for the people on here saying it’s inequitable… the parents who are lazy or just willfully don’t want to learn need to step up. That’s actually your job as a parent. And if it’s language related, that’s also a moot point as most school personnel are bilingual and we have translation services.

For kids who skip to work a job, those students need to be tracked to a different program (internship, GED, etc).

We have to stop letting our students fail, cheat their way through credit recovery, and expect them, at the same time, to leave with an actual education that prepares them for college or a career

[Anonymous]

We have many students who get randomly pulled out of school for a week to 3 weeks to visit their home country. I assume parents don’t go during winter break because tickets are expensive. Instead they will pull the kids in Feb or March. It is a real pain because kids miss a lot of stuff. These are unexcused absences. Any idea how these will be dealt with?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have many students who get randomly pulled out of school for a week to 3 weeks to visit their home country. I assume parents don’t go during winter break because tickets are expensive. Instead they will pull the kids in Feb or March. It is a real pain because kids miss a lot of stuff. These are unexcused absences. Any idea how these will be dealt with?

Technically once they hit 10 days, the school is supposed to unenroll them and they are required to re-enroll to return to school. I had that happen to several of my students this year. Sometimes the parents just don't re-enroll them though

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have many students who get randomly pulled out of school for a week to 3 weeks to visit their home country. I assume parents don’t go during winter break because tickets are expensive. Instead they will pull the kids in Feb or March. It is a real pain because kids miss a lot of stuff. These are unexcused absences. Any idea how these will be dealt with?

Technically once they hit 10 days, the school is supposed to unenroll them and they are required to re-enroll to return to school. I had that happen to several of my students this year. Sometimes the parents just don't re-enroll them though

That’s interesting. Our school only applies the 10 day rule sporadically. They seem to monitor attendance more closely in the first couple of months to disenroll no-shows but then they seem to move on to other things

[Anonymous]

Plenty of parents are picking kids up without signing the kid out. The kid just walks out of the building. Or the kid is just leaving the building when they feel like it. These are unexcused absences and should be marked as skipping.