Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Attendance Policy topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Parent urges board to revisit attendance rules, citing inconsistency and burdens
Summary
A parent told the Manassas Park City Schools board that state chronic-absenteeism thresholds and district procedures are creating burdens for families and urged the division to use attendance-data tools more effectively and focus interventions on at-risk students.
At the school board meeting, Dr. Dawn Hayford, a Manassas Park parent with four children in the division, urged the board to review attendance policies and procedures, saying state definitions and district practices can penalize otherwise high‑achieving students and create practical burdens for families.
Hayford told the board that the state’s definition of chronic absenteeism—missing 18 days or 10% of the school year—can be misleading for students with strong academic records and that the distinction between excused and unexcused absences felt “meaningless” in practice because both count toward the same threshold. She described an instance in which her son’s absence for Take Your Child to Work Day was marked unexcused at one school but excused at others, and said that inconsistency is confusing for families.
Hayford also said the district’s requirement that families obtain physician notes after eight absences imposes financial and logistical hardships, particularly for families without insurance or those facing limits on Medicaid. She argued that parents often must take unpaid time off or use scarce paid leave to secure documentation for routine illnesses.
Finally, Hayford encouraged the district to use SchoolStatus Attend and other student-record integrations more effectively so attendance data can trigger targeted, personalized interventions rather than blanket penalties. She said she had shared her concerns with state representatives and asked the board to “trust parents” and focus resources on students who are demonstrably at risk.
Board members did not take action during public comment; the superintendent’s office said staff would work to respond in a timely fashion to concerns raised during public comment.
