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Caption : Are you more likely to skip class or be tardy now that there is no ARC?
by Maren Bench
On May 17 Governor Cox signed Senate bill 219, which was passed by the Utah Legislature, into law. It states that tardies and absences will no longer be counted against students for the remainder of the 2020-21 school year and for all of next school year.
“Senate bill 219 that was passed said that schools can not do anything punitive against students related to attendance,” said principal Christine Straatman. “It really focuses on truancy but it’s not clear in the language and so we discussed as a district administration and we had the discussion about our NCs and ARC. It’s really our NC policy that’s connected to our attendance policy.”
For students at NS, this bill means they will no longer be held accountable for NCs and will no longer be required to complete ARC hours.
“In following the guidelines that were presented to us, we felt like that we
needed to remove and no longer issue NCs,” Straatman said. “It is in place for the remainder of this school year and next school year.”
This change has brought about a multitude of mixed feelings from staff and students alike.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea. I think that it encourages kids to not have to come to school,” said NS attendance secretary Tori Hansen. “There’s absolutely no repercussions for missing school, and so there’s no accountability for kids to be in school and that creates a problem. It makes them not get good grades because they’re never here and there’s nothing we can do about it.”
In a recent survey, 77 percent of students at NS say that they will not be more likely to be absent or tardy to class while 23 percent say that they will be more likely to miss school more often. As far as their perception on how this will influence their grades, 45 percent of students believe that this new change will have no impact on their grades while 13 percent believe that it will have a negative impact and 42 percent believe that it will have a positive impact on their grades.
“It does help if you do have tardies or you’re absent occasionally and your parents don’t excuse you,” said junior Alora Whitman. “It’s nice that way because then you don’t have to do ARC, because that’s always a pain. But I feel like overall, it’s not going to be as good.”
Catherine Carney, who is in charge of the ARC program, believes that this new rule will not benefit students in any way.
“It takes accountability away from students. As a high school teacher, besides just teaching or just having sports, we’re also trying to help students prepare for life as adults,” Carney said. “Whether that is a stay-at-home mom, a college professor, or president of the United States, there’s accountability. I feel that by taking that away, we’ve hindered our students in being able to function in society.”
With no more NCs and teachers no longer being able to punish students with ARC time, there will basically be no repercussions for sluffing a class or just being absent. This has caused worry over how student’s grades will be affected by the rule change.
“I think it will affect grades immensely because when you’re not in class, it directly reflects on your grades,” Hansen said. “You need to be in class to get good grades and do your work and get the work that’s assigned.”
Once a student is behind, it makes it harder to make up the time that they missed in the classroom, according to Whitman.
“I feel like it’s definitely going to be a bad thing, but a lot of kids are thinking of it as a good thing,” Whitman said. “But the less you’re in class, the worse your grades get.”
With the new rule change, student athletes wonder how it would affect eligibility for game day. According to Hansen, the policy has not changed and student athletes will still be required to not miss or be tardy to class on game days.
There is a possibility that this new policy might change next school year, but it depends on whether or not the administration receives any clarification on what repercussions they can apply to students who miss class.
