What If I Arrive Late or Need to Leave Early?Students who are more than 10 minutes late to school should take to the Attendance Office a written note from a parent, explaining the tardiness. Those who arrive late for school without such a note will be given just one more day to take one in to the Attendance Office. The Attendance Office will assign some kind of penalty, such as lunchroom duty, for every unexcused tardiness to school. If you are late to a class, your teacher will expect you to present a note or pass from the adult whom you were with. You are allowed to have one excused tardiness per trimester. After that, if you arrive late to a class without a pass, you will receive an infraction slip from your teacher, and some penalty such as lunchroom duty. Some examples of acceptable reasons to be tardy to class are: weather/traffic conditions; illness, medical/dental appointment, other important appointment, family emergency. If you need an early dismissal from school (e.g. to keep a medical appointment), take a note from your parent to the Attendance Office before school on the day you need to leave early. The Northshore School Board Policy on AttendanceWashington State law defines an unexcused absence as one in which a student is absent for more than half of a school day without a valid excuse (RCW 28A.225). Unexcused absence from a class or from school will result in your getting an infraction slip and having some kind of penalty, such as after school detention, Saturday School or even suspension. So, what are valid excuses for missing school? The Northshore School Board, in Policy No. 3122, directs the schools to accept the following as the only valid reasons to excuse a student from the state requirement to attend school daily:
To arrange for an excused absence from school, as for travel or because of a religious observance, you must get a Pre-Arranged Absence form from the Attendance Office about two weeks before the planned absence, then take it to each of your teachers about a week before your absence. This way, the teachers can prepare in advance a list of assignments to be completed during the absence. We ask that a parent of any student who has an emergency absence from school, as for illness, call our Absence Reporting Line [ (425) 489-6266 ] to explain the situation. Phone calls made before or after regular school hours, are recorded by an answering machine. Upon their return to school after an absence of any duration, students should bring to the Attendance Office brief note, signed by the parent, which explains the absence. It is each student's personal responsibility to make-up assigned work missed during an absence, no matter the reason. We recommend the returning student talk to each of his or her teachers on the first day back from the absence. The teachers at Kenmore Junior High generally follow the practice of allowing students the same number of school days to make up missed work as the student was out of school. If in a particular case this expectation might seem to a parent to be unreasonable, we invite the parent to contact the teacher directly. |
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