As a teacher, my job is to report attendance everyday into the automated system (along with the day's lunch count). Beyond that, I don't have any input in terms of excused or unexcused absences. So I have a parent who is disputing an absence I input, as Unexcused ("truant"). The student was in fact absent. I don't think she is disputing the absence; I think she is disputing whether the absence was excused or not. I guess my question is: What is the definition of an Excused absence vs. an Unexcused absence? In trying to figure it out myself, I went into my class' attendance statistics, and I had plenty of students with Unexcused absences. Can anyone tell me the difference?
Do you have to mark kids as excused or unexcused? We just mark them absent and the office sets excused or unexcused. As far as I know, any type of note or phone call gets it marked excused at my school.
Bump this up to admin. You can't fix what you have no control over. At my school, all absences are unexcused until a note or other documentation is taken to the office.
This is how it is at my school. When a note is brought in, I send it to the secretary, and she makes the changes from unexcussed to excused. There are only certain things that are excused, like a doctor's note or a death in the family. We can only take 5 hand written "please excuse" notes over the course of the year. Things like transportation issues, missed the bus, car won't start, and vacations are all unexcussed.
This one is out of your hands. The student handbook has the definition of excused absence and unexcused absence, and administration is the judge according to the criteria they have on paper. If there is documentation, the office will have it. If not, the absence is unexcused. Good luck.
You have received excellent advice here. Send it to admin and stop worrying about it. As you stated in your post, you just mark their presence or absence based on whether or not they are in the room. After that, it is all done in the office. Tell the parent nicely to take it up with the admin/office, since that is above your paygrade.
Thank you guys. Exactly, vickilyn... I need to stop worrying about this (with this person in particular). And yes, I don't know why I'm being included in this issue, since I never determine Excused or Unexcused. And to me, I'm thinking to myself: Why is she making such a deal about 1 unexcused absence (out of a handful of excused absences), and numerous tardies... who cares at this point?
Teachers mark absent or tardy and the attendance clerk determines whether the absence or tardy is excused or unexcused. Once a student reaches a certain number of tardies or absences, I (the VP), set up an attendance meeting with the parent. Bottom line is that this issue is out of your hands. Email the attendance clerk and cc the message to your admin.
My school has seemed to put it all on the teacher. If I mark a student absent, I have to ask the student where he/she was the next time I see him/her (if he/she is still marked unverified the next day). If the student doesn't have an excuse (was seeing another teacher), then I submit a write up and the admin deals with it. If the student has an excuse, they need to prove it through a teacher's note or have a teacher confirm with me through email. If the student is marked absent in multiple classes, the online system automatically marks them absent unexcused (and an auto call is sent out to the home) and im off the hook. It's a big pain and it's easy to forget when you're in the moment during your lesson the following day to follow up with the student. We get email reminders every week with a list of teachers and their students marked unverified. So yes it is our responsibility essentially to keep track of it all.
usually a doctor's note or some sort of communication with the school will result in it being excused....However, this probably depends on the school. I think you should check with the office.
Definitely stop worrying about it. Just by the mere fact the parent is involved makes it an excused absence in my book.
