Under a new attendance policy at Oak Park and River Forest High School, students can only have 12 absences in a given semester, excused and unexcused, before they are at risk of losing credit for a class.
Some excused absences are exempt from counting towards the 12 absences, such as religious holidays, hospitalizations, deaths of family members or in-school meetings with support staff.
In addition to the exceptions above, Illinois allows students five mental wellness days per school year, which is an option that parents and guardians can select while excusing their student. These absences are excused and do not count towards the 12 absences that OPRF allows. Taking more than five mental wellness days will result in an unexcused absence and will count towards the 12.
Once a student reaches the 13th absence in a given class, they will be notified by their pupil support service (PSS) staff. OPRF Counselor Erica White relayed that the PSS team is looking for the “why” the student isn’t attending classes; it could be from a familial problem or a chronic health issue. “We try to work with these students to find feasible solutions.”
OPRF Principal Linda Parker touched on the importance of attending classes. “The interaction between peers matters … students share different perspectives as they work on daily classwork with their peers.
Prior to Covid-19, the attendance policy was the same as it is now. Transitioning from remote learning to in-person learning can be difficult for some students, Parker acknowledged. “Some people thrive on the screens because [OPRF]can be a challenging environment … 3,000 people is a lot.
And some people don’t need this kind of environment,” Parker said. This kind of environment can scare some students away from the classroom, and OPRF tries to account for students who feel that way. Kristina Johnson, director of student services at OPRF, said, “More than half of the students with excessive absences are failing the class periods that they are missing.” “Multiple national studies show that students that miss more than 10% of the school year are at risk of falling behind…which is just missing 18 days at OPRF.” The school allows a total of 29 absences for a full year, she added.
Students who responded to a Trapeze-conducted survey about the new attendance policy via a Google Form expressed their opinions. Senior Maura Mueller said, “I think it is unfair for students who have weakened immune systems and spend lots of time out of school because of sicknesses, and other things that students can’t control.”
Parker touched on these unique situations, saying, “This is not about [students] that might be struggling with chronic conditions …that’s something different.” PSS teams will work with those students who have unique and difficult conditions, Parker said.
Overall, administrators stressed the positive aspects of attending class. They stressed that the new attendance policy is not to punish the students who miss classes, but rather to help and support the needs of students who have a tougher time going to school.
“I hope that attending classes now as a high school student…leads to a sense of pride and accomplishment for students,” Johnson said.
“It’s not like a student hits the absence limit mark and then they’re hearing from us after the fact about their credits,” said White. “We work with students. We are monitoring student attendance and working with them and their families to solve problems before they reach that point. A student might be facing a tough situation in their life that impacts their attendance, but we try to work with them and their families towards a solution.”
“We want all students to access the many resources that OPRF offers, and we try to work as a PSS team to ensure that students are taking steps to reach graduation and achieve their post-secondary goals,” White added.
