By Michela Oxford

Illnesses, dentist appointments, extracurriculars and just plain exhaustion. A student misses class for many reasons, but missing class as a punishment shouldn’t be one of those.

Attendance in high schools is an issue, but Lawrence USD 497 handles it the wrong way. As is, students who rack up tardies and unexcused absences are pulled out of class to sit in In-School Suspension (ISS). Escorts to classes and detentions or other punishments should be provided to enforce attendance in high schools instead of ISS and OSS, which cause students to miss even more school.

The saying, “Don’t fight fire with fire” should apply here. The Lawrence High planner says, “The most common cause of academic failure is absence.” This being true, the school should not suspend students for missing class.

With the current attendance policy for USD 497, after the tenth tardy or the sixth unexcused absence, ISS and OSS are possibilities for punishment. Sure, missing class or coming in late to class diminishes both the experience for the student and the rest of the class.

But pulling those students out of class and forcing them to sit in ISS — where they may or may not work on homework and are missing the discussion or lesson — is worse for their academic careers than coming in a few minutes late to class.

Being tardy includes being even just a minute late, depending on how strict the teacher is. The first few minutes of class are used for salutational things that do not affect the success of students. Missing your teacher say “good morning” or telling the class what you are doing that day, no matter how often, shouldn’t cause a student to miss an entire day of classes or more.

Students also are absent for many reasons. Every case is different so this has to be taken into consideration by the administration. Some students don’t have a way to school or frequently get sick. Not all students are just skipping class.

OSS, or Out of School Suspension is for any amount of time seen fit for the amount of offenses that have occurred, decided by the student’s vice principal. The amount of days assigned are to be consecutive making it harder to catch up. Missing full days or even weeks of school is very difficult to make up because you miss whole projects or assignments.

One solution to this issue would be to assign escorts to and from classes or detentions. Some might say that this is just more work for both the school and the staff but after all, their first job is student success.

Imagine missing an episode of your favorite show. You can watch the one next week and fill in what you missed easily, but if you missed five consecutive episodes and tried to jump right back in you would never be able to catch up on your own.

If the school provided escorts for repeat offenders to their detentions or other community service projects around the school, then the students would be forced to go and receive their punishment but wouldn’t have to miss more class than they already do.

If a student is skipping class frequently, assigning them a punishment that makes them miss more class is not a punishment at all. Escorting them to do physical work or even homework after school would be a better incentive for students to go to class.

Some other ideas from schools around the country such as Prior Lake high school in Minnesota that once a students gets the seventh absence they can lose the credit for that class unless they fix their attendance and complete the class with good standings.

Also a more dramatic approach is Florida Driver’s License Law which states that a student with 15 or more unexcused absences within a 90-day period will have their driver’s license or permit revoked. To get reinstated, a student must attend school regularly in the time specified by the law or may be required to wait until their 18th birthday to be reinstated.

Every approach to this issue has pros and cons but escorts to classes, detentions and community service projects at the school if necessary have only one con and that is more work for staff and administration, whose job is to make students successful.