Attendance

The retiring chancellor of the New York City public schools recently said that the main lesson he learned on the job was that attendance matters. Another prominent New Yorker, Woody Allen, put it this way: "Eighty percent of life is showing up."  

We're changing the way we handle attendance at the high school this year. In the past, students would lose credit for a course if they missed too many classes - in theory. In practice, hardly anyone ever did, because parents would usually come to their rescue in the appeals process.  

This year, the administration has asked teachers to base ten to 15 percent of a student's grade on attendance. We're allowed to do it any way we see fit. In my classes, a student earns two attendance points for each day he or she arrives on time and stays for the whole class. If a student arrives late or leaves early for any reason, I deduct one point. If he or she misses the entire class for any reason, no points are earned. There are 45 class days in a quarter, so each student can earn up to 90 attendance points. I'll throw in ten more for everyone to bring it up to 100, just to make calculations easier. That's ten percent of the total grade.  

Notice I said "for any reason." That means even an excused absence -- an illness, a field trip, an away game, a family crisis, or that extra day tacked onto spring vacation to take advantage of cheaper air fares -- will cost the student two-tenths of one percent of his or her grade for the course.  

Of course, students who miss class for legitimate reasons can make up quizzes or reading and writing assignments. But there are some things that just can't be made up. They can't make up missing a group project like reenacting the Trojan War or staging a funeral for Jay Gatsby. They can't make up missing a class discussion in which somebody says, "This may sound stupid, but." and then says something amazing. The rest of the class can't make up missing the amazing thing that absent student might have said.