Lakeland District policy committee revises attendance policy language; debates verified absences, petitions and credit-withholding

Lakeland District policy committee members and district staff spent a multi-hour session reviewing a draft student attendance policy, focusing on how absence codes in the Skyward student information system should be treated, when absences should count toward petition thresholds, and what sanctions (including withholding credit) should follow repeated violations. No formal vote was taken; committee members asked staff to refine the draft and bring it back to the committee.

Committee members said the discussion matters because attendance affects student learning, teacher workload and state funding tied to average daily attendance. Multiple administrators warned that inconsistent use of Skyward absence reasons has produced heavy administrative work — and sometimes unintended consequences — for school offices and teachers.

The draft before the group collapsed older “excused/unexcused” wording toward a verified/unverified model used in Skyward. Several participants argued for treating “an absence as an absence” for the purpose of triggering interventions, while others pushed to preserve flexibility for prearranged, school-related or documented medical absences. Staff explained that Skyward now stores two condensed absent types (verified and unverified) but an extended list of absent reasons still appears in the system and is used inconsistently across buildings. One administrator said when the district reran reports with standardized reason codes the number of students flagged for petitions fell substantially, from roughly 215 to 11; staff said that change reflected code cleanup, not a change to the attendance requirement itself.

Administrators emphasized several process limits and legal constraints. Staff noted that state compulsory-attendance law requires children in certain ages to be enrolled (the transcript discussion cited the 7–16 age range), but the statute does not prescribe a single numeric “days present” threshold for local credit decisions. The group also identified specific codes that should not be counted against students — for example, suspension or juvenile-detention placements cannot legally be counted as an absence that penalizes the student because the district is assigning an alternative educational placement for those days.

Petition and sanction framework discussed in the meeting tracked a multi-step approach commonly used in the district: a first notification/warning, a second-step probationary response, and a third-step sanction that can include withholding credits with an appeal path to the Board of Trustees. Multiple staff described that withholding credit has occurred but is uncommon; staff estimated they have withheld credit only a handful of times in recent years and emphasized that withholding credits can cause scheduling and transcript complications (for example, when the student later regains the credit and the schedule needs adjustment).

Vacation and prearranged absences drew extended debate. Several teachers and administrators described frequent family vacations that fall during the semester (examples cited included Europe, Hawaii and Central America) and noted the extra make-up work teachers must prepare when students are absent. Some educators argued for treating prearranged family vacation forms as an excused/verified category, provided the absence is prearranged and the student completes agreed make-up work. Others warned that allowing too many prearranged exceptions shifts significant workload onto teachers and can undermine in-class learning for students who do not keep up.

Staff presented data and practice proposals: standardize Skyward absent reasons across all schools, limit the number of reason codes available to school office staff, and use the verified/unverified absent-type distinction as the controlling operational filter when generating petitions. The group discussed common Skyward codes (E=excused tardy, B=verified, U=unverified, D=disability, X=expulsion, A=school related, I=in-school suspension, O=out of school suspension, S=suspension only for students with disabilities, W=weather) and agreed the district must map those consistently to any new policy language.

Participants discussed alternatives for students with chronic attendance barriers. Staff described existing options such as Mountain View online and IDLA; some said better, district-created “retrieval” or bridge programs would be helpful to keep chronically absent students connected and avoid losing credits or graduation progress. The committee also discussed the district’s self-directed learner policy and whether students with regular, documented alternative learning arrangements should be excluded from absence counts.

Several operational directions emerged by consensus rather than vote: staff should (1) consult operations and Skyward administration (the transcript referenced putting the Skyward-code cleanup on the operations agenda and talking with an individual named Chuck), (2) tighten the set of reason codes used by all schools, (3) clarify which absence types count toward petition thresholds (committee feedback favored counting verified absences toward the 10-day notification threshold unless otherwise excluded by law), and (4) develop clearer guidance about prearranged vacation forms and required teacher sign-off when students leave during the semester. A subgroup of staff (named in the meeting as Josh, Dustin and Shannon) agreed to draft revised language and bring it back to the committee for further review.

No formal motions or votes were recorded in the transcript. Staff and committee members repeatedly emphasized that implementation would not be immediate: the committee intends to refine policy language, run reports that reflect cleaned Skyward codes, provide administrators training on any new code set and then present a final recommended policy and implementation timeline for broader board consideration.

Next steps: the policy committee will receive a redrafted policy informed by the Skyward code cleanup and the subgroup’s edits. Staff said they will produce the attendance reports that reflect the proposed coding changes, prepare guidance for prearranged absence forms, and plan training for summer or early next school year before any policy takes effect.