Dozens of students flock in every day after the 8:15 AM bell rings. What they forget is that the lateness policy is still heavily in effect and more important than most students realize. 

The policy remains the same as follows: you will fail for the year if your absence total reaches 20. You can reach this by being tardy or absent. Remember three tardies equal an absence. Therefore if you are a person that is constantly late, your attendance is in even more jeopardy. Though the policy hasn’t changed, students are acting as though it doesn’t exist and this mindset will be detrimental to their future. 

Being absent during homeroom and arriving late to the class that starts your day is something that happens to too many students. People may have responsibilities and personal issues before school but unfortunately, the school does not hold any sympathy for those situations. Try your best to arrive at least during homeroom so that you do not fail. 

Another way many people accumulate absences for a class is when you skip. Skipping is a poor choice for a number of reasons, but the main one is that they will not excuse it. There’s a chance you will be marked as a cut or if you are lucky, absent. Both of those things are attendance penalties. By making the choice to skip you are jeopardizing your ability to pass for the year.

Attendance is vital and you will not notice until it is too late. Louis Gallo, the attendance coordinator, gives insight on the concrete standards.

“If a student accrues five, six, or seven absences for any class the teacher would put an F as an attendance override, and it would be considered an attendance failure,” Gallo said. 

Sometimes, you will find yourself accumulating absences that you were not aware of. If you showed up after attendance was taken or you were with a guidance counselor during the class time your attendance may be affected. It becomes a problem when the student notices his/her attendance is accumulating, but he was in the school. Students must understand that you (specifically seniors) will not be granted the privilege to cross the stage if you fail any required course due to attendance.

“They will have to go to summer school to make it up, they will not get their diploma, until they do compensate. They can come to the building to pick it up, probably from Miss Daisy,” Gallo said. 

Gallo mentions the seriousness of another issue that ignites conflict between teachers and students 90% of the time. 

“If a student claims a teacher or a substitute marked them absent when they were actually there, I cannot change that,” Gallo said. “Attendance is a legal document that cannot be tampered with. Without the authorization of the teacher and administrator like Mr. Lugo, or with an excused absence notice from an appropriate person, I cannot adjust it.”

Amongst all these issues, Gallo has devised a solution to the possible absence of mistakes made by teachers. He created a form for teachers to send in a request to correct attendance. It asks for the date of the absence as well as the reason for the change. Teachers could alter any records up to a month prior.

You should only be missing school if you absolutely have to. Nobody wants to be in summer classes, especially seniors with senioritis. Attend your classes because if you don’t, the JCPS teachers will be seeing you in sunny July.