While brainstorming ideas to prevent the rise of absences and tardies that occurred after Covid-19, the teacher leadership team implemented a new policy.
Students will receive an extra 5% on their final if they have five or fewer absences, as well as another 5% if they have five or fewer tardies.
Although created to boost morale and attendance, this policy wasn’t received with the unanimous open arms initially hoped for.
“It was kind of shocking to me because what if you’re sick, or you have a family situation happening,” sophomore Soni Ray said. “How can something [you can’t control] disqualify you from earning extra credit?”
The announcement of the policy coming from principal Charles Golden at the first class meeting of the year made an impression on the students.
Finals can stress a majority of students in the last few weeks of the semester, so the introduction came as a big shock to most.
Science teacher Azie Pickert and ELA teacher Casey Engel, who are both members of the leadership team that drafted the policy, never intended a stressed response.
“I thought it was a heavier bonus until the math teachers did the math for me, because I can’t do math,” Engel said. “Ultimately, it’s maybe a 1% bonus.”
The lack of impact on grades sadly does not soothe the student body at Blue Valley, with 53% of students who believe the policy either has no place at BV or needs revision according to a survey of 245 students. Main concerns become attributed to viewing the policy as a punishment instead of a small bump at the end of the semester.
“The goal was never [to stress the students] — you should be coming to class but [it] couldn’t be where everybody gets bumped up a hill,” Pickert said. “It was enough to matter, but not enough that it would be ridiculous to somebody.”
The main motivator behind the policy came from the attendance concerns. Covid learning has impacted attendance in schools, with Blue Valley being no exception.
“Last year looking at my attendance screen, there were just as many students absent as those present some days,” Engel said.
On its own, the 5% might not be the sole solution to attendance issues. However, Engel believes the focus of teachers should not be surrounding this end-of-semester policy but instead on how to help the student body as a whole.
“If we’re fixated too much on a 1% advantage on the final, we [fail] to look at other milestones along the way,” Engel said. “Every couple of weeks, [we need to ask students] ‘Do you need some extra support to get you to the grade that you want, regardless of the bonus that may or may not happen for you?’”
