LYNN — A proposed change to the school system’s attendance policy would lower the number of days students could miss per quarter before automatically failing their classes.
Superintendent Dr. Patrick Tutwiler and his administration have presented potential attendance policy changes to the Lynn School Committee, which were discussed during the panel’s policy subcommittee meeting last week.
Tutwiler said he plans to craft a policy for the committee’s review on April 11, but the “anchor idea” of potential changes is reducing the number of absences a student can have per quarter for a period before automatically receiving a “D-” or failing that class.
The current policy states that if a student has seven unexcused absences in a term, that would result in an automatic “F” grade. The proposed change would lower that number to four unexcused absences, but under discussion is whether missing four days would result in an automatic “D-” or a failing grade, according to Tutwiler.
“We expect kids to come to school every day,” he said. “I think our policies have to reflect our values. We heard loud and clear from the School Committee and we agree that seven is just way too high.”
In other urban districts, for instance, Tutwiler said the numbers for allowed unexcused absences per quarter are not as high as in Lynn.
Also under discussion is a grade recovery earn-back option, which is based on the attendance policy for Chelsea Public Schools.
In Chelsea, if a student is passing a class, but has more than two unexcused absences per quarter, they would automatically receive an “E,” a failing grade in the district, on their report card instead of their grade.
In that district, students can “earn back” their “E” if they have two or fewer unexcused absences the following quarter. But if they do not buy back their passing grade, the failing grade will become permanent, according to the policy.
Last Thursday, school officials discussed an alternate earn-back option where students can make up missed work within an established time period to receive a passing grade rather than have the “D-” or failure become permanent, according to School Committee member Jared Nicholson, chairman of the Policy Subcommittee.
“We’re in the process of evaluating whether we can make it work, but I really like the idea,” Nicholson said. “We want students to succeed and we want students to take attendance seriously. This is a way to elevate the seriousness of attendance by raising their attendance, but also at the same time to go out and work with them to give them a pass improvement when they’re not able to meet those expectations.”
What’s at issue is whether the district is prepared or has the capability to track and input altered grades for an earn-back option, Nicholson said.
“We’re a big district, so that’s a lot of administrative work,” he said. “Is it possible to make that a reality?”
Although Tutwiler said he likes the philosophy of an earn-back option where students have an opportunity to make up for a mistake, he feels strongly that it would be logistically challenging and difficult to manage.
“I don’t think there’s the capacity to do that sort of monitoring,” Tutwiler said. “I think that it would be really hard and get messy.”
The superintendent made it clear changes discussed during last Thursday’s meeting were not formal recommendations. He doesn’t expect his crafted policy to be substantially different, but it may not have all of the features discussed last week.
“All that was presented to the School Committee last Thursday were ideas about a direction the policy could take,” Tutwiler said. “What was given to the School Committee was not a formal proposal or recommendation.”