The attendance policy for OPS school has changed now that students are on different learning plans and are not physically in school every day. The students and teachers have shown their dissatisfaction regarding the attendance policy for this year as it’s affecting students’ attendance poorly.

Students are marked absent if they’re not present in school on their in-person days if they are following the 3/2 learning model, even if they log in via Teams to their classes and participate. This is to keep track of who was and wasn’t in the building. While the student will be marked absent, teachers are to make a note that the student learned virtually.

If teachers are able to note that students are attending school online, it wouldn’t hurt to count them as being there. While the responsibility must be taken, they could try to find a way for students to not be counted absent even when they’re going to class online. Until they find a better way for attendance to work, students should not be marked absent.

Students shouldn’t be marked absent just because they didn’t feel good enough to attend school in-person. For students who can’t go to school due to the coronavirus, this is their only way of keeping their attendance. Thus, this is in no way fair to these students who have been maintaining their attendance nor for the kids that have Covid or contact with someone who have Covid.

The thing is that if they’re well enough to log in online, they’re still somehow attending class. That’s why I feel like it’s not fair to just count the student as absent because in the end they’re still attending.

Also, attendance matters and while it may not matter to most, it will still matter to most people. For the students that tries to keep a perfect attendance, being counted absent will affect them a lot. While it may not be as often now, the amount of absence a student has can affect their record negatively as well.

Therefore, this attendance policy isn’t helping students and is harming students and their records. While this may not be a big problem for many, it affects others in many ways.