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Last year, NS administration released NCs from students with NCs relating to missed attendance. They made the change after a reinterpretation of Utah’s Truancy Enforcement Moratorium with counsel from the school’s attorney Carol Lear. Last year was the first year students were issued NCs after the coronavirus pandemic.
“A decision was made then,” Straatman said, “to bring the [attendance] policy back with our interpretation of what the moratorium meant, but at the end of the school year last year – in looking at data and having conversations with our attorney, that helped us look at and try to define it and bring some clarity to it – the decision was made to release NC credit.”
The Truancy Enforcement Moratorium was in place from March 17, 2021, to June 1, 2022. The bill’s purpose was to help schools recover from the coronavirus pandemic by decriminalizing certain truancy violations.
Straatman said, “The feel of the moratorium is that we needed to be cautious doing anything that was punitive related to attendance, and so it’s that interpretation of whether you feel NCs are punitive or not punitive.”
Last year, the administration decided to continue the issuance of NCs with the exception of a quarterly deadline. Students had the flexibility to recover ARC hours past the end of a quarter without losing credit. Unfortunately, many students had a year’s worth of ARC at the very end of the school year. After again reviewing the moratorium, the NS administration decided to forgive NCs given to students who still had ARC hours.
“Just because we released the NCs doesn’t mean that we are making a statement that attending school is not important. We know it’s important for kids to be in class. It’s important for them to have in-person interaction with teachers. There are discussions and activities you will not be able to make up if you’re not there in person.”
Straatman emphasized that students only had their NCs released if they had passed their classes. The decision to release an NC came down to a student’s grade, not their truancy. If you weren’t passing your class, you still had an NC.
“To the kids who made up that time during the school year,” Straatman, “what I would say is that I hope that the time that they spent making that up, interacting with their teachers, was valuable. We want them here; we want kids here. We want kids interacting with teachers, we want them engaging and working on their homework, and we hope that although they put in that time, I hope it was valuable time.”
NS Junior Payton Hendry supported the decision to release NCs last year, although he wishes they had made the change earlier in the year to help more students who had class time to make up in ARC.
“I think that would’ve definitely helped me,” Hendry said, “because there were like times where I wouldn’t go to class because I had to get physical therapy from Jamie before my practice fourth period, so it would have been a lot nicer if I didn’t have to worry about ARC then. I think the attendance policy should be a lot less intense because missing school is sometimes necessary.”
Since the moratorium ended in June, NS will return to its original truancy issuance and enforcement as stated in the attendance policy.
Straatman said, “What can students expect? The moratorium is lifted, we went back to our attendance policy as written, NC’s can accrue, kids need to make them by the quarter how the original policy was written.”
This year, Spanish teacher Greg Dettinger will take Mrs. Carney’s place as the new ARC monitor. ARC is now open from Tuesday to Thursday from 2:30-3:30 p.m.
“I don’t think anybody wants to stay after and make-up time, but they missed it, to begin with,” Dettinger said, “so they have to make it up somehow. I think it’s pretty awesome we give them an opportunity whereas at other schools if you miss, you miss.”
Currently, a committee of teachers and administration is discussing future changes to the school’s attendance policy. In particular, the committee will discuss how to tackle attendance now that the district will be moving to the Personalized, Competency-Based Learning (PCBL) framework.
“We are looking at that: should attendance be attached to students earning or not earning credit for a class? Through the lenses, there’s a much bigger background maybe to that conversation because the district is moving to PCBL – and that doesn’t focus on necessarily class time.”
Hallie Henrie
It’s just dumb because I had straight A and A minuses and I still had to go to ARC. If I’m like a good student
You can still get straight A’s and not show up to some class periods
