Policy review committee reviews broad revisions to student attendance policy

The Stratford School District Policy Review Committee on March 19 discussed a draft rewrite of the district's student attendance policy intended to increase clarity, align local practice with state guidance and strengthen family engagement.

Sam, a district staff member who led the review, told the committee the draft incorporates feedback from state attendance officials and aims to make policy language more user-friendly. "Temporary withdrawal is strongly discouraged unless the student is permanently transferring out of the district," Sam said, summarizing state guidance the draft is intended to reflect.

The proposed changes address multiple topics across grade levels. Sam said the draft clarifies that tardies should not be counted toward daily attendance at the secondary level and that, at the high school level, "every three unexcused tardies will count as one unexcused class absence," preserving a local mechanism for class-level discipline while keeping daily attendance calculations consistent with state rules.

For middle and elementary schools, the draft separates class absences from daily attendance and removes language that in some previous local practice had…