One of the many new policies this year limits the number of absences students can have.
By LilyAnn Haight
Editor-in-Chief
I observed members of my senior class in an uproar two weeks ago after an announcement in a senior meeting during Advisory class stating Eugene 4J School District’s new attendance policy, which states, after only 10 unexcused absences, a student’s grade will be brought down to a pass or no pass. This includes being marked late or early departure.
Guidance Counselor Miguel Garcia made the announcement in the auditorium, just seconds before students began standing up and shouting out questions and voicing frustrations about the policy.
And rightfully so. This policy is going to make it exponentially harder for some students to secure post-secondary education if they have a history of being late to class but are still a good student. Colleges and universities tend to ignore or look down upon students who have a “P” (pass) on their transcript rather than an “A” or “B.” This policy comes right as the Class of 2024 — the last class of high schoolers who had a year of online class — are seniors.
Our high school experience has already been negatively impacted by the pandemic, which affected many of our grades and transcripts. Now this policy is causing more tumult for us. Having our grades reflective of our attendance is something we have never experienced before, so we will likely be the class whose transcripts are impacted the most by this.
The policy doesn’t only affect seniors who went through “covid learning,” it imposes on anyone who has a less-than-normal commute to school. Students who drive in from out of district and from several towns over are more likely to be caught up in traffic than those who live mere streets away from the school. These students are late more often than their in-district counterparts, thus being more affected by this policy.
Another issue with this is the construction that is constantly causing traffic on River Road. Students shouldn’t have to be held responsible for the awful traffic that occurs in the morning, and yet that is what will be happening.
Unfortunately, there is yet another issue being brought up by the student policy regarding this rule: mental health days. In 2019, Gov. Kate Brown signed into law that students can take up to 5 mental health days off from school for every three months. This breaks down to about 7 days per semester. This means that if students use up those mental health days, which they are encouraged to do, they can’t be marked with an unexcused absence for more than 3 more days. “Overwhelming” and “unfair” is the overarching feeling regarding this.
Although administrators place a heavy emphasis on trust between students and staff, I can’t help but feel that this policy is going to remove any progress in that field. Hopefully I’m wrong, and hopefully this policy is removed or altered for future classes, but as of now, I’m skeptical of what this policy will result in.
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