Butler BOE Considers Changes to Attendance Policy

The adopted regulations Monday that go along with a new attendance policy that will be presented to the board at its next meeting.

The new attendance policy has a provision that would have students lose credit for courses on the 16th day that they are absent from school. The previous policy had students losing credit on the 17th day.

Board Member Cynthia Sokoloff described some of the changes from the current policy at Monday's board meeting. Sokoloff said that one of the biggest changes is that family vacations will no longer count as excused absences, and will count against the days a student can be absent before losing credit.

There are exceptions that are considered on a case-by-case basis, Sokoloff said. These exceptions include religious holidays, deaths in the family or serious illnesses. For illnesses, students are required to bring in a note from a doctor, and Sokoloff said the timeframe for that will also be changed in the new policy. Before, she said, students had until the end of the year to bring in the note, but once the policy is in effect, students will be required to bring in the note within five days of returning to school.

Board Member Karen Smith said, "This usually does not become a concern until that child is about to lose credit." Smith said that oftentimes, parents would wait until the end of the year, and sometimes even ask friends who are doctors to submit notes for the students who were about to lose credit due to absences.

Smith said the board looked at policies of neighboring school districts and decided that a stricter policy would be beneficial in keeping kids in school and giving them more time to learn.

Butler Superintendent Mario Cardinale said he thinks this policy sends "a good message" that the board cares about keeping the kids in school to have more opportunity to learn.

"The more time and effort you put in, the better you're going to do," he said.

Cardinale said that to be an active participant in classes, students need to be in school. He also said that historically, Butler has had good attendance rates (see chart below), and that he is hoping these policies will help them improve even more.

The next board meeting will be held on March 24. Sokoloff said that while she expects the policy to be approved by the board at that time, the changes will likely not go into effect until the next school year.

BUTLER SCHOOL DISTRICT ATTENDANCE RATE PERCENTAGES*

*These figures were taken from the New Jersey Department of Education's School Report Card for Butler Public Schools. The percentages are based on the number of students present in school each day.