Council Report: New Attendance Policy Passes and Cell Phone Discussion Takes the Floor

The highlights from Council’s September 13th meeting are displayed below:

• The new attendance policy that had been introduced by Dean of Students Julie Stevenson last week was split into two parts due to disagreement over a clause in the policy that would remove the rule that requires students to report the reason for their absence on a Goldenrod form (the form which students who plan to take an excused absence from school must fill out with their teachers). The Council voted to isolate this clause from the rest of the original motion and refer it to the Council’s Administrative Committee for further discussion and refinement.
• The remainder of the attendance policy motion was passed and now awaits Principal Justin Campbell’s approval.* This section includes the new “10-15-20 Rule”, which is meant to crack down on excessive student absences from school. It establishes the points at which the school must contact and/or meet with a student’s parents as well as alert state agencies after that student has reached a certain number of absences. Large portions of the school’s previous attendance policy were also reworded or deleted.
• A discussion was begun over the extent to which teachers can restrict students’ cell phone use during class. A motion on the issue has not yet been introduced on the Council floor although the Administrative Committee is in the process of crafting new wording to replace the cell phone policies currently written in the HHS Handbook, which its members view as outdated.

Special thanks to representatives Cathy Han, Oliver Minshall, and Ian Nolon for their notes.

*The attendance policies of the Dresden School District have already been changed to the rules shown in motion. The main purpose of the motion is to bring the rules outlined in the HHS Handbook into agreement with the school district’s rules.