Harden Middle School

Reporting
ALL absences from school must be explained by a parent/guardian by a phone call, email or by fax (see contact list on the side). Please try to avoid the hours between 8:00 a.m. and 9:00 a.m. on weekdays during which time messages are being retrieved. If attendance office personnel do not answer, the legal parent/guardian may leave a message on voicemail, clearly stating your student’s name, grade, time/day(s) of absence, and briefly, the reason for the absence.

Clearing Absences
Absences must be cleared, or the absence will be reported as a truancy. Failure to do so will result in the student receiving a truancy for the class(es). Students returning to school after an absence should go directly to the attendance office to check in. Once a student accumulates a certain number of truancies, the family will be referred to the District Attorney's Truancy Abatement Program.

Automatic Dialer
The Automatic Dialer is programmed to call the student’s home twice a day, once at lunch and once in the evening, to report absences. It is intended as a courtesy only. It is the parent/guardians’ responsibility to report their student’s absences. The information relayed by the automatic dialer is not necessarily a complete or accurate representation of the student’s attendance activity. However, a daily listing of calls and responses is generated for verification purposes.

Concerns and Questions
If you have a question about the way an absence has been recorded, contact the teacher for the period in question directly. If it was a simple mistake, which will occasionally happen, it can be easily corrected.

Leaving Campus for Appointments
Harden Middle School believes that regular attendance is essential for student learning and is a basis for success. We strongly encourage appointments to be made during non-school time if possible.

 

If a student does need to leave campus during the day for an appointment, the procedure is as follows:

Leaving Campus Due to Illness or Injury
A student may not leave campus because of illness or injury without first checking in with the Health Office. A log is kept of all students who visit the Health Office and is submitted to the Attendance Office daily.

Verified Absences
“Verified Absences” falls into one of two categories:

 

1) HEALTH – Absences due to illness or medical appointments

 

2) WARRANTED – These include, but are not limited to the following:

 

Absences that do not qualify under the categories listed above as “Verified Absences” are considered truant. 

Consequences for Truant Absences in Classes
Absences which do not qualify above, shall be considered in this category. Truants are defined as absences without parent, guardian or school approval and shall be marked as cuts.

 

Consequences for truants:

 

Questionable/Excessive Absenteeism
In cases of questionable or excessive absenteeism, the school district may ask for a variety of reasonable methods for verification of illness, such as written excuses from parents or documentation from a physician or other health providers.

Tardies
Students arriving late for class will be marked tardy. The attendance office will not accept tardy notes and the student must be marked tardy regardless of reason. 

Consequences for Tardies In Classes
The students will earn an unsatisfactory citizenship grade for each class in which they have been tardy. In addition, they will become ineligible for sports or student activities if they earn more than 1 U. For excessive unexcused tardies, the following may result: loss of campus rewards, referral to a counselor, family meeting, or referral to the District Attorney's Truancy Abatement Program.

Non Attendance and Tardiness
Harden Middle School recognizes that success in school is in part related to prompt and regular classroom attendance. Frequent absences or tardies, which result in a student’s missing all or parts of presentations, demonstrations, discussions, tests, explanations, and/or other classroom activities, are detrimental to the individual student and the class. Student non-attendance and/or persistent tardiness are therefore matters of serious concern.