Notes from the Attendance Office Attendance Line: 349-4704 Attendance •

•

• •

Indiana Compulsory Attendance Law states that students are allowed 10 days of absence each school year (equivalent to 40 periods at North), and all absences after that must be accompanied by a doctor’s note in order for the absence(s) to be excused. There may be consequences for unexcused absences, and teachers are not required to provide make-up work to students with unexcused absences. Even if you provide doctor notes for any/all of the first 10 days of absences, you still must provide doctor notes for all days beyond the 10-day legal limit in order for those absences to be excused. (In other words, providing doctor’s notes for those first 10 days does not mean that those days don’t count toward the 10 day total.) Handwritten notes from parents are not accepted for reporting absences or departures; please call the attendance line (349-4704) for absences, late arrivals, or departure times. Students should always sign out when they leave school and sign in when they arrive at/return to school.



Attendance Office •

The attendance office is open from 7am-3pm. If you call after 3pm, the call will not be heard (and thus attendance will not be recorded) until the following day.



Calling the Attendance Line • • • • •

The attendance line (349-4704) is a message machine, and it is available 24/7 for you to leave messages. A parent or guardian must be the one calling in for a student. The student or a sibling or a relative can’t call in to report an absence or request a departure. Parents can only call in for their own children, not for other people’s children who may be riding with them. Please inform us if a grandparent or someone other than the parent/guardian will be picking up a student. We only release students to parents/guardians unless told otherwise by the parent/guardian. People listed as emergency contacts for your family are people who WE contact in case of an emergency, but they are not allowed to call in absences or request departures for your child.



Change of Address/Phone Numbers •

If you have a change of address, you must provide us with 2 pieces of recent mail as proof of the new address in order for us to change the address in the school computer system. It is important to keep your address and phone numbers up to date so we can contact you if needed.



College Visits •

Juniors and seniors are allowed 2 days each year for college visits. These do not count against their attendance totals.



Cougar Den •

Students who are not in their den class will be marked absent.



Enrollment •

Enrollment packets can be picked up in the main office or attendance office during school hours. Documents that need to be provided for enrollment include: an original birth certificate, 2 proofs of address, proof of guardianship, immunization records, and grade transcripts from the previous school.



Passes • • •

Passes are issued for students when they need to leave school early. Students are not allowed to leave class without a pass from the office. We try to send passes early in the day, but sometimes circumstances don’t allow that (what time you call, if we have available runners, what class your child is in, etc.). Please don’t call back multiple times; that just delays the process. That being said, please be aware that sometimes (rarely) passes don’t make it to the students. In those cases we ask the teacher to call the attendance office to see if a particular student has a call to leave. Let your child know this, so they can talk to the teacher and get out on time if they don’t receive a pass by the time they need to leave school.



Pre-Arranged Absences •

We do not have pre-arranged absence forms. Parents/guardians just need to phone in absences to the attendance line (349-4704), and students need to work with their teachers to get make-up work (if the absences are excused).



Release/Departure from School •

•

•

If your child needs to leave school early, please call and leave a message with the departure time. Please call at least 45 minutes before a student needs to leave school. We can often get students quickly, but sometimes circumstances don’t allow for a quick departure. There are times during the day when it’s difficult to locate a student (lunch, tutorial, den, PE class), so allow as much time as possible. There are also times when the office is very busy or we don’t have office runners, so we need plenty of time to get passes to your students. You can call the attendance line at any time to give us information for a release time. The message machine is available 24/7. You are welcome to stop by to pick up your child, but it will take us some time to get them from class, and that is a much more disruptive process than when we have been given advance notice and can send a pass. If a student leaves school without permission or a pass, they will receive a disciplinary referral. (Parents should not text their students to give them permission to leave without going through the proper procedures.)



Sick Students

•

If a student is sick at school, they need to see the school nurse. The nurse will then arrange for them to leave if the parent approves the departure. Students should always sign out in the attendance office after seeing the nurse.



Tutorial •

Passes are not delivered during tutorial, and lunch immediately follows for some students, so if you call any time between 10:35 and 1:30 (tutorial and lunch), your student may not get a pass in a timely manner. Please call as soon as you know the student needs to be released so we have a better chance of locating them in class.



Final Notes from Missy: Very rarely the attendance lady (me) is sick or gone, and one of the other secretaries has to fill in. Please be patient with whatever may happen on those days. It’s difficult for someone to step into this job. Just remember that everything can be fixed and no attendance issue is really ever a crisis. I hope these notes help you understand our school procedures better and help you realize we’re doing our best every day to keep track of our 1600+ students as well as keep them safe. Questions? Call 330-7724 and ask for the attendance office. Missy Shahadey