Attendance Policy: How it's affecting seniors

The Senior Attendance PolicyIn order to walk the stage at Graduation, no senior can miss more than 120 class periods.3 tardies = 1 class period absenceThe number of times this policy has been recounted to the senior class is ridiculous; in email form, on announcements, a paper reminder distributed in both my first and second periods, at the senior assembly. Repeated into our ears and wormed into our resistant frontal-cortexes, most seniors are perturbed about the senior attendance policy but have nowhere to express it. How do rules like this come into being?It’s not a new policy. Experimented with between 2004 and 2011, the absence cap ranged from 93 periods to 144. It’s unclear why the policy was abolished, but I learned from Ms. Baxter that the reinstatement of the rule is a response to the performance of last years seniors by SMMUSD senior cabinet. Their cumulative period absences were 31,077, compared to 25,920 in 2011. To be fair, last year was not an aberration but rather the continuation of a senioritis trend, which may not be reversible without the imposition of consequences. Baxter describes absences as a learned behavior, “If I touch the stove and nothing happens, I keep touching the stove.”The school is motivated to keep kids in class for instructional reasons, but they also receive $30 every day you’re in your seat. Last year, teachers were greatly offended at senior’s apparent disregard for the school and for what the school provides for them. (They could also be miffed at their absences cap being 10 days a year, half of what students have been afforded).The ’17’s discontent arises from the fact that we are being punished for the actions of the ’16’s. Yes, attendance can be expected to drop for seniors (especially second semester). But the friction comes with the projection that our attendance would be as excessively deficient as the ’16’s.The fact that the policy is exclusive for seniors is a particular source of indignation. “It’s grade discrimination,” Skylar Hauge ’17 argues. “Adding another level of unpredictability to our senior year is cruel.” She, like many others, believe that by senior year, students are well apt at balancing their education, grades and outside passions. By this thinking, they should be rewarded with the trust to allot their time as they see fit.An unintended consequence of this policy could be more sick kids coming to school; they may have to save up class periods for college visits in Spring, or a trip at Thanksgiving to visit family, and reconsider staying home when ill.The addition of three tardies counting towards the 120 limit pushed the policy from annoying to unjust. The purpose of this addition is to reduce the amount of class time missed, but in reality, most tardies are 1 to 2 minutes and due to a line at the bathroom, or a traffic jam at the stairs, or a conference with a teacher that went a little too long. To have those fractions of class time missed be a recorded offense, leading to graduation-day punishment, is absurd.When it comes down to it, it is the fact that the policy exists, not its specific terms, that bugs most seniors. If the policy didn’t exist, most seniors would not exceed the 120 period absences (or 1/10th of the school year) anyway. That’s not the issue. The issue is that the administration has chosen to layer additional rules and hover a consequence over our heads the entire year. So close to the end of our lives under parental and institutional control, this chafes and feels like a regression.