Reply to Crowd-sourcing the attendance policy - making it work within current regs

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[quote=Anonymous]I've been thinking a lot about the DCPS policy on unexcused absences.  As far as I can tell, the policy allows for flexibility on a per school basis: "A-2102	ABSENCES

A-2102.1    	Any absence, including an absence from any portion of the day, without a
		valid excuse shall be presumed to be an unexcused absence.

A-2102.2   	An educational institution shall define categories of valid excuses for an absence, [b]which shall include the following:[/b] (illness, death, judicial proceeding, religious holiday, school closing, medical reason, DCPS transport failure, or Emergency Circumstances."

The policy analyst in me says that there are key phrases in the regulation: "educational institution" and "shall define."  Basically, the regulation says that the reasons listed above must be included, but it doesn't say that those are the only valid reasons.  In addition, "educational institution" is defined as "a school in the District of Columbia Public Schools system, a public charter school, an independent, private school, parochial school, or a private instructor."  So basically each school gets to set its own policy.

I don't see individual schools defining their own policies (that is a can of worms), but what if we provided some parameters for defining "categories of valid excuses" that schools could use in addition to those defined in the regulation?  These could be added to the written policies and procedures and defined up front for all schools.

Here's a stab at a valid excuse: "a valid excuse shall include absences for educational or enrichment purposes when a plan is worked out in advance for the student to participate in a home schooling program including daily lessons and homework.  Parents or guardians shall be responsible for working with the student's teachers to obtain lesson plans and homework assignments for the absence period"

What say ye, DCUM?  How would you edit or further refine?

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