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Re-1 officials seek to tighten schools' attendance policy

July 21, 2001

by Aspen C. Emmett
Journal Staff Writer

Frustrated with rampant absenteeism, Montezuma-Cortez School District officials are looking to toughen up on the attendance policy at Cortez Middle School and Montezuma-Cortez High School.

At the Re-1 school-board meeting Tuesday night, CMS Assistant Principal Tom Burris presented a first reading of the proposed revision to the existing policy. The most notable change is the addition of a clause addressing excessive excused absences.

In the past, theoretically a student could be absent nearly the entire school year as long as his or her parent excused the absence — but no longer.

If the new policy is adopted, Re-1 schools would allow "excused absences up to 10 in a school year. Students who have excused absences in excess of this number must provide written verification in the form of a doctor’s excuse, professional appointment excuse or the verification of a death in the immediate family. Any absence for any other reason would be counted as unexcused."

Students are also allowed 10 unexcused absences in the course of a school year. Following the 10th unexcused absence, school administrators may recommend to the school board that the student be expelled for the remainder of the semester.

"There are parents out there whose kids have been absent excessively and I think some of those parents are going to be resistant," Burris said. "This is a pretty big change in the attendance scheme."

District policy defines reasons for excused absences as temporary illnesses or injuries; appointments or circumstances of a serious nature which cannot be taken care of outside of school hours; work-study programs supervised by the school; school-sponsored activities; activities of an educational nature with advance approval by the administration; and impassable road conditions for bus transportation.

"The district may require suitable proof regarding the above exceptions, including written statements from medical sources," the policy reads.

Burris emphasized that legitimate lengthy absences are allowed and are evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

The 10-excused-absence limit is aimed at circumstances which are not legitimate, he said. Burris explained that he has dealt with several parents who are lax about their children’s attendance and often excuse absences that otherwise would have been inexcusable.

"We had quite a number of students whose combined number of absences was in the 60s," Burris said. "My most extreme case was a student who was absent — and this is both excused and unexcused — 103 days out of the 168-day school year."

The school district has also taken legal action against children and parents by taking them to court in an effort to make the child go to school. In one case, Burris took a boy and his parent to court four times in the last school year — to get an attendance order, to enforce the order, and finally to sentence a parent who was in contempt of the order.

But legal action has proven to be a costly measure.

"The other thing we need to consider is it cost a little over $3,000 taking eight or 10 students to court last year," Burris told the school board. "It’s a catch-22. Do we spend all that money getting the kids to school or do we spend it on education programs?"

Burris noted that poor attendance directly affects a child’s ability to perform well on the state-required Colorado Student Assessment Program testing.

Board member Sue Baacke speculated that, though costly, taking extreme measures to get kids into school and performing well could be worthwhile.

"If we’re talking about changing behaviors, it may be money well spent," Baacke said.

Burris said the proposed policy is an effort involving the middle school, the high school and central administration, adding that the problem is district-wide.

"We’ve had numerous meetings involving these entities, and the elementary schools are interested as well, because they’re involved in the CSAPs too," Burris said.

Board President Steve Hinton said that for the policy change to make a significant difference, students and parents need to be made aware of the ramifications of poor attendance, possibly through more publicity of outstanding violations.

"If we could make some show cases that things have changed — it might change things," Hinton said. "But people have got to know what we’re doing. It can’t be a hush-hush, sneak down to court."

Burris said he has had good success with taking students to court and making them attend school. He said one student who was ordered by the court to go to school turned his efforts completely around and was even on the honor roll by the end of the year.

"I attribute that to forcing the action of coming to school, feeling some success and being happy at school," Burris said.

Administrators will discuss a second revision of the proposed policy at the Aug. 14 school-board meeting.