Attendance Policies Attendance Policies Show Transcript hello my name is Julie Roston and I'm the assistant principal here at Orleans high school and I wanted to put together a short video that covers attendance um because we've had a lot of questions about attendance at the beginning of the school so hopefully this is something that you can um reference throughout the year if you have any questions about attendance so I'm going to cover 3 main things the first thing um will be Senate bill for 82 and that was a new attendance bill that was um came into effect July 1st of 2025 and when it first came out there were many articles that were circulating with some misconceptions and misinformation that I do want to clear up so I believe 1 of the first articles here locally was um saying that um doctors excuses were no longer excused and bereavement days were no longer excused which is not true the state of Indiana um still considers um doctor's notes as excused absences and I'll talk more about those in a little bit and also funeral days are still excused absences um so I did want to clear that up a little bit the Senate Bill really it boils down and it the biggest effect is on how schools report absences it doesn't really affect families or students um in any way it is more of how we report to the state about absences and that's what the changes are so um now how we have to report an absence gives the state a little bit more detail in the past we would just say it was excused or unexcused now we have to report it as excused medical or cert ified medical or um excused uh family planned or certified family plans so it just gives the state some more information as to why students are absent in school because we as the state of Indiana have a a chronic absenteeism rate of 18% so the next thing I want to get into is the definition of chronic absenteeism so chronic absenteeism is when a student misses 10% or more of the school year so our students are in school 180 days so 10% is 18 so students who Miss 18 or more days and that is unexcused used in a combination of excused they are considered chronically absent so the state of Indiana is getting more information as to why now Orleans high school has a chronic absenteeism rate of 13 % so that is something we want to work on this year to um see why our students are are missing so much those who have are Meet The Chronic absenteeism um definition I also wanted to find another term that's habitual truancy so habitual truancy in the state of Indiana is when a student has 10 or more unexcused absences and so um when a when we do not get to call in or an email or a note we don't get anyone saying why a student is absent that is an unexcused absence and those really hurt a student in the sense that students are not allowed to make up work when they have an unexcused absence so it's really important that you call your child in um because when you don't when you don't call them in or email or send a note they are not allowed to make a work for that day so now I want to get into to our own specific attendance policy and there for most part it's the same as it was last year but there are just a few changes that I I do want to talk about here in Orleans high school we report 3 different different types of absences so I want to go over those first the first type of absence that you would see on your child's attendance record is a certified absence so that is an excused absence that does not count against the student so for example those would be doctor's notes um so dentists doctor chiropractor anything like that when they come with the medical note it is a certified absence and it does not count against them continuing certified absences would be funeral days and there's a little bit more detail in our handbook about um the family relationship and how many days you do get also legal business verified by the council pre-arranged um holidays or job Shadows um participation of school sponsored activities military connected families and there's also some other absences that are covered by the state of Indiana for example the State Fair if you're participating in the state fair that is a certified absence okay the other absence that we report in code is excused absences and that means we know where your child is okay but they're not certified these are excused absences that do count against them so that would be you calling in to say your child's ill that would be a parent or Guardian calling in saying the child has personal business um that would be parent or Guardian calling in saying they just won't be there today um inclement weather if you call in and say my child cannot make it because of whether that is an excused absence it is not a certified absence um and also pre-arranged vacation absences so if you call in or you call in and say that your child is going to be out for a week because you're going on vacation it's your right to take your child on vacation um those are only excused not certified all right so they will count against them I do want to add parents can only call in 5 times they can only have 5 excused absences if a parent calls in the sixth time It's a combination of sick personal business vacation so on and so forth that becomes an unexcused absence and I'll remind you students cannot make up work for unexcused absences so once if they start start accumulating the sixth call in the seventh call in the eighth call-in and Beyond we do have in our handbook a layout of those consequences that will take place um at 5 absences I just want to let you know the parents will be contacted and a conference will will be requested from the administration to parents um because we want to make sure our our students are not getting to um the the definition of chronically absent okay we want to start working with that student at absences and um hopefully stop and alleviate any more absences happening okay the last absence that we code here and report at Orleans High School is an unexcused and so that is when as I said before we do not hear from a parent or Guardian um the child is not here obviously and no 1 calls in for them or writes a note so in other words we don't know where your child is um so those are the 3 types of absences that you will see on your child's attendance records and that's how we code them here at school 1 thing that has changed this year last year we um had makeup time offered when a student missed 8 or more absences in a class makeup time is not going going to be the standard anymore we will not have makeup time um once a student does hit um 7 absences and again that is call-ins um they will be put on an attendance contract makeup time could be a part of that but that will be a case-by-case basis so I do want to let people know that that is a change this year other than that the way we code absences is not changing doctors notes being certified is not changing funeral um is not changing it still is certified absence for students so I did want to put that to rest um and I think the last big thing I just want to re repeat and remind because we always have questions about vacation days vacation days are only excused they are not certified so after if your family takes a 2 week vacation 5 of those will be excused um if they have no other absences and then the other 5 will be deemed um excused however or so sorry they will be unexcused okay if you have any questions you can always contact me at school um you can give a call 812-865-2688 and my extension is 203 or you can email me at Julie Roston at orleans. k12.in us thank you
