A new attendance policy at Hildreth Elementary School and the Bromfield School allows students to be excused from classes for family trips of up to five days. But if a child has been absent without approval for more than five days, parents or guardians should expect a letter from a school administrator and a request for a meeting.
The new policy, adopted earlier this year by the School Committee, requires parents to complete an online form at least five days in advance of any planned trip. No more than five days of such travel is permitted in any given school year. Approval of the absence is at the discretion of the school principal.
As stated on the new Bromfield excused-absence form, the policy is a recognition by administrators that “family trips and college visits can offer important learning opportunities” beyond the classroom. But the policy is also an effort to clamp down on classroom absences, which were especially high among juniors and seniors last year compared to that of other K-12 classes, and to respond to changes in Massachusetts state law. An amendment to the portion of law that sets rules for school attendance now requires a school official to notify and meet with parents whose child has missed more than five days of school without permission and to devise a plan to improve future attendance.
Absences due to illness are excused, as are absences for major religious observances or family bereavement and funerals. Family trips taken without approval will be counted as unexcused, and trips taken during state-mandated testing dates are not excused. “Vacations and trips with a recreational focus should not be taken during school time,” the HES and Bromfield handbooks advise, which encourages families to do their traveling during regular school vacations.
Making up for lost time
In devising its new policy, administrators and School Committee members wrestled with whether to penalize students who miss an excessive number of classes in a given subject by withholding some or all of the credits for that course. “In the end, we decided to be proactive,” said Superintendent Linda Dwight in a phone interview this week. Missing classes has its own consequences, she said, and the policy makes clear that parents and students must make their own arrangements to catch up after an extended absence. Teachers want to help, she said, but it takes a tremendous amount of teacher time, energy, and attention to get a student back up to speed.
Under the new policy, teachers will allow students to make up missed assignments, tests, and quizzes, but they are not required to prepare work in advance for students or to tutor students when they return from vacation.
Dwight says that the new PowerSchool application will allow Hildreth and Bromfield administrators to more closely study absenteeism at the two schools. “We don’t fully understand the problem yet,” she said.
