Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Attendance Grading Policy topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
School committee adopts revised attendance, grading and assessment policies; detailed procedures moved to handbooks
Summary
The committee approved three policy updates that move several operational details into district procedures and student handbooks, including changing how skipped classes are handled and advancing competency-based grading work. Members requested accessible procedure links and staged rollouts for different grade spans.
The Manchester School Committee on March 10 approved revisions to three district policies addressing grading, attendance and assessment, moving several procedural details out of policy and into district procedures and the student handbook.
The teaching-and-learning team urged the change, saying portions of the existing policy language are better maintained as procedures. "It is our recommendation that, what you see marked out would live in procedure," said Leslie Whitney, executive director of teaching and learning, describing work already underway with a standing committee.
Attendance policy: the board removed language that treated a student's failure to attend an individual class as an attendance-policy absence and clarified that skipping class will be handled as a disciplinary matter under the code of conduct. The committee requested an explanatory asterisk and a link in the policy to the code-of-conduct procedure. Assistant Superintendent Doherty said skipping classes is addressed as a discipline issue: "That doesn't meet the law for when we look at attendances for unexcused absences by the state. So a class, failure to attend class is more in line with discipline."
Grading and assessment: members discussed the district's multi-year move toward competency-based grading at the high school level. The teaching-and-learning committee said the shift will be deliberate and require years of professional development; the district plans professional development for 2025–26. Committee members urged the administration to provide research and a timeline for transitions to competency-based practices, including how midterm and final assessments will be handled.
Public access and clarity: Board members pressed for clear, student-friendly procedures and asked that procedures be embedded in the student handbook with direct links from the online policy page. Committee member Parr successfully moved an amendment requiring that the procedures be available "electronically in the student handbook," and the committee approved that change.
Outcome: The committee approved the three policy items and the handbook/procedure linkage amendment.
Context and next steps - The teaching-and-learning committee will continue work on procedures and timelines and will present updates at its March 20 meeting and to the full board later in the spring. - The administration said student handbooks for each grade span should be ready for board review by the May policy meeting, with procedures posted electronically sooner where appropriate. - The administration plans professional development for competency-based grading in 2025–26.
Speakers and sources quoted in this article were participants in the March 10 meeting.
