Faculty Pass New Attendance Rule
Exeter’s faculty plan to add a new rule regarding students’ course attendance to the Academy’s E Book. The rule will take effect next term. According to Dean of Students Melissa Mischke, this new measure will enable the Academic Advising Committee to review students’ absences and allow the committee and the dean of students to collectively decide whether or not students who have missed over 20 percent of required class meetings deserve credit for the course.
“The Academic Advising Committee will review the attendance and the situation [of a student], then determine if there are special conditions or situations that warrant an exception. After that, a recommendation for losing the credit or keeping the credit will be made by the dean of students,” Mischke said.
Mischke added that faculty members have already voted for the implementation of the rule, and that information surrounding the rule will soon be provided to the student body as well as parents. The rule will be included in the online version of the E Book in the near future and will be incorporated in the printed copies of the E Book beginning the next academic year.
Dean of Residential Life AJ Cosgrove said that the faculty decided to create the new rule in order to administer classroom attendance, a pivotal aspect of the Academy’s unique Harkness pedagogy.
“Attendance in a Harkness classroom is critical,” Cosgrove said. “This policy helps to reinforce what the faculty feels is important at our school.”
Mischke added that the rule would serve as a vehicle for the Academy to stress the foremost priority for students: attending classes. “This rule is a better way for us to be able to have conversations with families about petitions, students who are fatiguing, or those who have protracted illnesses or mental health concerns,” Mischke said. “The rule is a way for us to say that the school needs you to be in class—that’s the priority and that’s the message this rule is intended to send.”
English department head and instructor Lundy Smith emphasized that this “20% Attendance Rule” is the first policy to address the topic of attendance. He added that the rule would be a helpful reference point for both students and faculty members. “There was no policy before,” Smith said. “We have never had anything in place about the number of classes a student can miss. It will be a helpful tool when talking to kids who have been missing a lot of classes. It will give them a benchmark for kids who have frequent attendance problems to work with.”
English instructor Eimer Page said that although the rule will be beneficial, a student missing 20% of required class meetings is a rarity.
“I can think of only one student in my eleven years at Exeter who missed anything approaching 20 percent of the class meetings, so I expect that, for all but a tiny number of students, this new policy will not have any negative impact,” Page said.
Yet modern languages instructor Jacqueline Flores emphasized the value of class time at an academic institution and said that regardless of the rarity of students missing classes, an implementation of a guideline like the new rule is necessary. “At PEA, students learn a lot in the classroom and each student has a role and a responsibility around the Harkness table. I don’t want to punish the student when she or he accumulates too many absences, but sometimes there is a problem and that student needs to go home,” Flores said. “I am in favor of this rule because we have attendance rules and we have an obligation to enforce [those rules] as teachers and students.”
Smith echoed Flores’s sentiments and added that the absences of one student can be a frustration for the instructor and students alike.
“There are kids who do blow off classes, and I think we’re trying to send the message that what happens around the table is valuable. If not, people could just go home, do things online, and do everything on their own,” Smith said. “I think for some teachers it has been frustrating to have a kid who misses a lot of classes but does excellent work get the same grade as the student who comes to every single class on time everyday. I think students would also say that that’s unfair.”
“There are kids who do blow off classes, and I think we’re trying to send the message that what happens around the table is valuable. If not, people could just go home, do things online, and do everything on their own.”
Students responded to the new policy with mixed sentiments.
Prep Noah Asch said that the rule would penalize those who deserve to be penalized for missing classes. “I think [the rule] will be great,” Asch said. “I think it’s pretty tough to miss a fifth of your classes, and if you do, you’re missing so much; you’re not really learning the course. I think it’s important that people missing so much pay the consequences.”
Upper Caroline Sullivan agreed with Asch and the faculty who accentuated the value of class time at Exeter. She said that if a student fails to show up to 20% of a course, the student loses the opportunities to connect with her of his classmates. “Plus, in high school, students need to be somewhat disciplined in how they're managing their time, so coming to class should be a basic expectation,” Sullivan added.
Unlike Sullivan and Asch, upper Maya Perkins said that the rule seems unfair, for it takes into consideration excused absences, as well as unexcused absences.
“If I understand it correctly, according to the proposal, even if an absence is excused, it will still count towards that 20%. So that means that if you are sick and fatigued and try to take advantage of the facilities and services afforded to you as a student of the Academy, you are directly affected and will be penalized,” Perkins said. “And that is unfair.”
Prep Charlotte Polk said that although 20% of a course is a significant amount of time, she emphasized that the 80% of class time a student might have showed up to should not be overlooked. “It makes no sense. [Attendance] has nothing to do with how I’m performing in the class. It should be a factor, but you shouldn’t lose credit if you ‘dick’ a lot; the other 80 percent of the time should count.” Polk said. “I think the rule’s ridiculous considering there are plenty of students who show up to class and don’t do the work. That’s 80 percent of your work counting for nothing.”
Page said that students should not be concerned about the fairness of the rule, for the rule states that the Academic Advising Committee will review each student’s case with thoughtful consideration and make sure the gravity of the consequences students receive reflects the students’ violations.
“For those students who may come up against it, the policy states that they will go before the committee, not that an automatic penalty will be applied I think that is fair, allows for understandable circumstances that might affect attendance and honors the hard work of all the students who make the effort to get their homework done, get out of bed, make themselves presentable and show up to class,” Page said.