Attendance Follow Up Email

Good afternoon, Academy families,

I wanted to expand upon the attendance email from last night so everyone is on the same page and you can have good conversations with your student about the need to be in school daily.  Please know that we do everything we can to slow down this process and give our students every opportunity to avoid the steps below.  I know that many of them are here due to this very reason, and it is our charge to help both them and you get on a better path for school attendance.  Parents, this is where you come in as HUGE SUPPORT for what we are trying to accomplish here at school regarding daily attendance.

Here are the attendance procedural steps:

A pattern of absenteeism is developing for STUDENT A:

• Phone call(s) / email(s) home from Academy Staff to discuss attendance concerns.  These calls may be from a teacher for a specific class, school counselor, social worker, psychologist, or myself.
  • If the absenteeism persists:
• Possible home visit.  We do not come to the home if no adult is present at the time of the visit.  We work with you as best we can to come when an adult is present.  If you are in need of help in this area, please let me know and I will come to the house!  We've done multiple visits thus far, you're not alone!  If you need us, we are here.
  • If absenteeism still persists:
• Attendance letters sent home to all students that eclipse a certain threshold.
  • Continued absenteeism leads to an Attendance Contract with the student/parent/administration.
    • If the absenteeism still persists:
• DCA - Denial of Credit with an Audit 
  • This means absenteeism is extremely high and we are running the risk of losing credit in that course or all courses.  In this instance, students continue to come to school and do their work and as their attendance increases and work is made up, we can remove the DCA and restore their classroom/report card grades.
    • If the absenteeism still persists:
• DC - Denial of Credit
  • This is a last resort and comes into play when all other attempts have not worked and we are at a point of having to Deny Credit for the year in one or all courses.
    • If this happens too early in the year, the student will not be eligible to take these courses in summer school as they would not have enough seat time during the year to qualify.  This would result in repeating the course the following year.

Please feel free to reach out with any questions.  I wanted to share this information with you early enough in the year so that we can help each other solve this growing issue not only in Sachem, but across the state, and Nation as a whole!

I'm sorry for the long message. Enjoy the evening,

Ralph Carusillo - Director
The Sachem Academy