On Monday Jan. 14, Dr. Cook forwarded an e-mail from an anonymous concerned parent to the rest of the Fossil Ridge High School staff. The letter discussed the flu and how it affected the attendance bonus that many teachers give out.
The letter read: “I know it is against district policy to penalize a student for missing a class. We all know that the teachers still do so, one way or another. *PLEASE* ask the teachers to suspend all of their ‘incentives,’ or whatever else they are doing to penalize a student for missing a class for at least the next several weeks (or until the CDC calls an all-clear.)”
Dr. Cook’s message in the forwarded e-mail read: “Please consider how the attendance bonus impacts students during times of epidemics.”
Typical attendance bonuses involve students getting extra points on the final test of the class depending on their attendance record. So this anonymous letter does raise sensible concern.
The bottom line is this: If a student ends up missing class because they are sick is it really their fault? Do they not deserve the attendance bonus because they caught something, like maybe the flu? The answer is no. They can’t help it if they get sick. If they are sick then they get an excused absence. The policy should only obstruct those with a certain amount of unexcused absences. When it’s excused there is a reason it’s excused. It is pardoned and it should not affect the attendance bonus.
Hopefully teachers will reconsider their attendance bonus policy (at least for this semester) due to the flu epidemic. Not doing so would be inconsiderate to those infected by the flu.
