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ETHS leaders propose ending "no-credit" attendance sanction after data show racial disparities
Summary
School administrators recommended eliminating the district's "no-credit" (NC) sanction and replacing it with a three-tier MTSS approach that emphasizes supports, incentives and targeted interventions after data showed enforcement disproportionately affected Black and Latinx students.
At the May 11 board meeting, Dr. McNeel and Miss Mona Bolas presented a year-long review of attendance practices and recommended eliminating the district's No-Credit (NC) policy, which removes credit after a threshold of unexcused absences.
"The NC policy really is in regards to students once they hit six unexcused absences," Miss Mona Bolas said, explaining how the NC is triggered and why staff now recommend replacing it with a supportive, tiered system.
The administrators presented analysis of first-semester data showing several concerning patterns: 42% of NCs overlapped with cases where the student had already earned an F (making the NC redundant in those cases), and enforcement fell disproportionately on students of color. Bolas said zero white students lost credit to an NC in the sample term while Black and Hispanic students faced NC enforcement rates of about 8'9 percent. Staff also reported that 76% of students affected by the NC were in free or reduced-price lunch.
Dr. McNeel and Bolas proposed a reoriented approach anchored in MTSS: universal (tier 1) incentives and messaging, tier 2 targeted interventions such as peer mentorship and check-in/check-out, and tier 3 individualized responses including an evidence-based school-refusal assessment, virtual-school options, or referral to North Cook truancy advocates for sustained absences. For tardies, staff proposed capping year-to-year rollover at 11 tardies and shifting to within-year, proximate progressive responses aimed at changing punctuality rather than a long-term punitive carryover.
Staff outlined practical changes to support the shift: revamping automated family communications to emphasize support and belonging; restarting attendance incentives and recognition; standardizing grading practices through a year-long collaborative committee to reduce penalties that inappropriately conflate attendance and demonstrated academic mastery; and monitoring outcomes via improved dashboards.
Students who participated in staff-led talking circles told presenters they wanted fair consequences and timely opportunities to reset, but said the rollover and work-off models had produced discouragement and a loss of motivation for students with many tardies.
No formal board vote to remove the NC policy was taken at the meeting; the presentation concluded with staff asking the board to endorse the approach and to continue the work of policy revision. Dr. McNeel said staff will continue to refine intervention pathways, align grading practices, and track the data next year to measure impact.
Next steps: staff will refine recommended policy language, work through the grading-practices committee, and present formal policy changes for board consideration and possible vote later in the year.
