<p>
[quote]
The kicker is that a senior who doesn't miss more than 5 days for the year, excused or not, and has a certain (3.0?) average is exempt from end-of-year finals. So if you use all 5 days on college visits, you better not get sick!
[/quote]
D had this one , too and she ended up taking some finals that she would otherwise not had to take. No biggie. Seemed like a fair trade to her.</p>
<p>Wow. Rules for this? I can't say I'm surprised, I had just never thought of it.</p>
<p>WashDad Jr. needs to submit a pre-authorized absence form signed by a parent to his counselor. Over the last three years he's missed school for "Engineering Day" at the UW, for college visits, and for robotics tournaments, with never a complaint. Usually, I get an email from his counselor saying she thinks the event sounds like fun.</p>
<p>I guess Jr's school isn't all that bad after all...</p>
<p>In my daughter's school, it's 4 days, but the school fudges things in certain instances (for example, a student who plans to major in music and therefore needs to audition at more than 4 out-of-town colleges is not going to be charged with unexcused absences for those audition days).</p>
<p>Zero. I wish they gave a couple.</p>
<p>My children's school offers whatever the student needs--we homeschool! --Schools that won't allow their students time to check out colleges are just another example of mindless bureaucracy in action. My oldest dd took an entire week her junior year, but she did okay it with her college profs first, and she made up all the work inn advance. My second dd did her traveling to the military academies in the summer--during their summer seminars.</p>
<p>Zero designated days, but S's public school has always allowed us to take him out as much as we like. Some years, it's been as much as 3 (separate) weeks, but always for educational travel. And he's always kept up with his work.</p>
<p>My school has two days in the fall before a weekend where seniors don't have school in order to visit colleges. Besides that they tell us not to miss too many days because senior year grades are so important, but they don't actually have a limit.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Schools that won't allow their students time to check out colleges are just another example of mindless bureaucracy in action.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>In some states, public schools receive state funding only for the number of students who actually attend school, rather than the number who are enrolled. Every student absence decreases the amount of money the local school system receives from the state. So the school systems try to discourage both excused and unexcused absences to whatever extent seems reasonable to them.</p>
<p>I believe our school allows three days per year (Junior and Senior) and the student should bring a handout from the school to prove attendance (that's for an excused absence). In reality I think they allow more latitude for students who have shown maturity up to that point and ride herd more closely on students who have pressed the bounds on attendance.</p>
<p>
[quote]
In NYC public high school it becomes a big issue because your school operating budget is allocated based on student attendance and schools that have low attendance rates put themselves at risk of being labeled as schools in need of supervision, being placed on corrective action or being listed as SURR schools.
[/quote]
I believe this is the problem in NC also. Students are "allowed" 3 excused days for illness with no repercussions. After 3 days there are penalties instituted. More than 8 days (even excused) will result in no promotion unless reviewed by school board and deemed extraordinary circumstances. There is "Sat. school" that can be attended to make-up days so that a student doesn't go over the 8.</p>
<p>" I would "call him in sick" but then I feel like I'm condoning lying."</p>
<p>At our school if a parent calls in and tells that the student will be absent, they don't have to state the reason... If it is a "scheduled" absence, you are supposed to fill out some form and get it signed. But most people don't bother doing that.</p>
<p>Our school also used to have some random days off for parent conferences or teachers' education. Some kids scheduled their visits on those days.</p>
<p>In our case, my son attends a private school, so they aren't losing funding through student absences. I think they just feel it's important for the students to be in attendance in order to accomplish what the teachers want to in a given year. Considering what we spend in tuition, I don't want DS to miss any class without a really good reason.</p>
<p>At my high school you were allowed 10 excused absences per year, and these could be sick days, religious holidays, college visits for juniors and seniors, funerals, and so on. Any more than that and you needed doctor's notes and so on. Any unexcused absences (even from just one class) resulted in a big disciplinary mess involving in-school suspension, calling of parents, and so on.</p>
<p>The school's gifted & talented program ran regular field trips to all of the colleges within about an hour, hour and a half of the school, so when it came time for me to visit colleges all the ones that were left to see were the ones that were far away. I made a couple of long college-visiting trips over spring break and the summer...it wouldn't have worked to just take a day off of school.</p>
<p>Our high school allows 2 days per year to Jrs. and Srs. for college visits. The student has to fill out a form and submit it at least 2 weeks in advance and have it approved by the GC. After the visit, the student must submit something on the college letterhead that shows he was there. </p>
<p>Excused absence at our h.s. only means the teachers have to allow the student to make up the missed work and they have 7 days to get it in. If absence is unexcused teachers don't necessarily have to allow make-up work but most do. 10 days of missed class gets you an F in that class.</p>
<p>As far as I know the school has no policy. Sometimes students also have trips which require them to miss days and I've never heard of the school giving them a hard time.</p>
<p>Anyways, I've visited all three schools that you mentioned. If you have any questions, PM me and I'll be glad to try and answer. Ohio University did have Saturday visitation days and we did visit on a Saturday. It wasn't a problem and I didn't feel that we missed out on much but it was a first visit and we didn't meet with any specific department. The school is so pretty, we were so surprised by the school, my H and I loved the school and its facilities. It is definitely (I hope I spelled that right for the grammar police :D) a place that a student with a serious major would need to be a major specific dorm ;).</p>
<p>College trips count as excused absenses at my school, but in spring semesters juniors and seniors are exempt from exams if they have no more than 3 absenses (including excused absenses, illness, etc., but not including school trip absenses) and meet some other requirements (average in the class above 80 or 85, no suspensions, etc.). It's a great way to encourage students to come to school sick, and get everyone else sick. I took my three days for college visits, and thankfully didn't get sick.</p>
<p>My son's school allowed the seniors three specific Fridays to go on college visits. We did most of our visits in the spring and summer of junior year. Most of these Friday visits were for second looks, interviews and sleepovers. We were very lucky in that the weather for each of these days was terrific.</p>
<p>My school doesn't have 'excused' or 'unexcused' absences.. we just take off when we need to. Most people don't want to be absent though because so much work is done during class that to have to make all that up in addition to all the homework is just not fun. We have one day (PSAT day) that we have off to visit schools. We also have a lot of colleges come to our school to have info/q&a sessions so we can leave class and go to them if we're interested.</p>
<p>Our school just allows a couple of days, but we found that with support from parents and the student's GC, they looked the other way. Also, music parents, our school did allow music students to be absent as much as necessary in order to audition. My D did do a number of college auditions on dates dictated by the colleges and conservatories, but at colleges that did not have a formal audition date, auditions may be arranged somewhat flexibly around a college visit if the professor who holds the audition is amenable. This might be a backdoor way for music students to get around policies at more rigid high schools. (What are they going to say: No, you can't attend a conservatory because we won't let you miss a day of high school for the mandatory audition date, and by the way, forget about auditioning at Princeton?)</p>
<p>D's private HS allowed 3 college visit days. She took 4 and they weren't too happy about it. Since she missed a total of 5 days during four years, I figured they could handle it!</p>