Dear Parent/Guardian

This letter is about student attendance. Good attendance at school is the key to success.
Here is what we need you to do:

• Send a note with the student on the day following the absence to verify your awareness, permission, and reason for absence. Date the note, and specify the date(s) of absence and the times where appropriate OR
• Call the school on the day of the absence to provide this information
• Frequently review attendance with your son or daughter. Talk about any unexplained absences and make your expectations clear
• Notify the school of any changes of address, home or work phone number, custody situations so that our records are up to date and we are able to reach you as necessary.

• If you notice an error in an attendance report because you called the school to report the legitimate absence of your son or daughter and yet it appears as a "skip", contact the attendance secretary.

• If the student says he or she has been marked absent but was really present, the student must take this up with the subject teacher and if the teacher agrees, he or she will make the correction with the attendance secretary and the record will be changed accordingly. The attendance secretary cannot make the change without the teacher’s authorization to do so.

• Students arrive in each of their classes and teachers take attendance within the first 20 minutes of class, marking either "A" for absent, or "L" for late. The attendance is taken to the office at about the 20 minute mark.
• The attendance secretary scans each attendance sheet electronically and this becomes the record for each student in the attendance data bank.
• If a parent has called in to verify the illness or medical appointment of the student to justify his/her absence, then the attendance secretary will enter a code in the system to indicate this.
• If a student is on a field trip or other school sponsored activity, the teacher gives the attendance secretary a list of such students before leaving on the trip and the secretary will enter the code for this type of absence.
• At the end of the day, the "Call Home" system calls the home number of all absent students who do not have an authorized code for absence. The purpose of this system is to inform the parent of the attendance record. If you would like the call to go to your work number, call the school to make this change.

You can request a printout of attendance at any time for your son or daughter. You can contact the attendance secretary, ask for a report, and pick it up at the main office later that day, or you can have your son or daughter request the report and pick it up at the office to bring home to you. Some parents make this the condition, along with good attendance on the report, to receive certain privileges.

The printout shows all the lates and absences for a student from September onward. Any absences with codes will be shown with specific comments about the reason, like, "Field Trip", or "illness", etc.
An absence without a code is considered a skipped class.

Please note that attendance and lates are shown on each of the report cards sent home with students.

Working together, we can help each student to be successful.