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District to revise attendance policy; cultural-event and religious-excuse limits proposed
Summary
Administrators reported lawyer-identified loopholes in the district's existing attendance policy and proposed limiting cultural-event absences to four per year and removing a provision allowing four religious-excuse days per month; the revision will be brought to the board as an action item next month.
The Birmingham Community Charter High District administrator told the board that lawyers reviewing the classroom attendance policy found provisions that could be abused and recommended revisions.
The administrator said one loophole allowed students to use "cultural activity" as an excuse repeatedly through the year. The proposed revision would limit cultural-event excuses to four times per year. The administrator also said the policy previously included a provision allowing four religious-excused absences per month; staff proposed removing that provision, saying it is not required for charter schools.
"For instance, somebody could invoke, cultural activity as many times as they wanted throughout the year and, excuse all of those absences," the administrator said. "And so, this addresses that and also the ability there was also provision that allowed, excuse religious absences 4 times a month. And so, that's not required by charter schools, and so we had that part removed and cultural events are limited to 4 times a year."
Staff described the presentation as informational and said they will move the revised policy to the action calendar next month for board consideration. The meeting did not include a formal motion or vote on the revision.
The presentation did not include the final draft language, a proposed effective date, or an analysis of how the change would affect current students' attendance records.
