<p>My experience as a student:</p>
<p>Vomiting in class due to food poisoning is an excellent way to bring a professor’s “3 absences = fail” policy under departmental scrutiny.</p>
<p>If I were a music major, I really would not want a student with a double ear infection in class with me. I think that excessively strict policies concerning absenteeism wind up encouraging students to come to class when they are ill, often with something communicable. It would be better if they stayed in their dorm rooms, or in the infirmary equivalent. </p>
<p>HIPAA probably prevents the actual reason for seeing the physician from being disclosed. As a faculty member, I’d rather trust people in general, and occasionally give a pass to someone who was conning me about illness, rather than be overly suspicious.</p>
<p>The policy is a grade dock for every 2 days out. The class meets 4 days a week. The illness days are the only days she missed.</p>
<p>She did go to Student Health and was prescribed medication. I suggested she go to Student Health for verification.</p>
<p>And,Sylvan, I don’t know what’s next. Our deal was she passes classes or comes home. She is full pay and I can’t afford to continue to pay if she’s not passing.</p>
<p>On the other hand, she got A’s in all her other classes this semester…Last semester she didn’t do quite that well but passed everything…
AND she can’t progress on in her theory class unless she passes this class and she can’t retake it till Spring 2015.</p>
<p>Again, thank you all for your input. </p>
<p>Since she did do C work and only failed because of attendance, it may be worth asking the department head for an exception and ask that they allow her to take the next class in the fall, then take this class over in addition to any other theory class she is taking in the spring. She should be able to prove to the chair that the absence was due to illness.</p>
<p>Sometimes students are not permitted to re-take a class if they have taken the next class in a sequence, but I would nonetheless approach the department chair and a dean to ask about this, while asking if she could be waived into the next class on the basis of proficiency. I would also ask if she might be given a retroactive medical withdrawal from the class. </p>
<p>If she needs to do a re-take, is it still possible for her to graduate within eight semesters provided everything goes smoothly from this point forward? If not, could she sit out fall semester and return to her school in the spring?</p>
<p>Since her other grades have been good, and assuming that OP’s D remains enthusiastic about the school and program, I would be flexible rather than tell her outright that she cannot return because of one failed class, regardless of prior agreements.</p>
<p>I would not suggest that the OP’s daughter ask to be waived into the next class on the basis of proficiency.
It seems to me that it would be worthwhile to know something about the grade distribution in the class. If the daughter had a C, without taking the absences into account, and this is an early music theory class in the curriculum (and ordinarily taken by freshmen), that raises the question of whether the student has understood music theory enough to continue successfully as a music major. </p>
<p>Are the classes totally sequential for 4 years, or is some doubling up possible in later years?</p>
<p>Since the OP’s daughter got A’s in everything else, I am inclined to think that she is doing fine, overall. What I would recommend is that she study music theory seriously over the summer, and try to identify the source of the problem with the class (aside from the possibility of hearing problems connected with the ear infection). A C in an introductory course is no problem if a student is taking no further courses in the area. It is also no problem if it inspires the student to buckle down and really work in the future. However, if it indicates some kind of difficulty with the course material, then it could be a problem for more advanced work in the area.</p>
<p>Also, I just wanted to re-iterate that I think that attendance policies that encourage students to come to class when they are ill are bad for everyone’s health. It’s just wrong.</p>
<p>Ear infections can lead to hearing loss. In what majors should students particularly try to minimize their exposure to other students with ear infections? Hmmm, think, think, think . . . no, I got nothin’. </p>
<p>OP, I agree with frazzled2thecore, especially the last paragraph.</p>
<p>Do not want to be nosy or anything like that. Is she at either a state school or a super “traditional” places where the professors tend to be on the “conservative” side?</p>
<p>I know that at some private college, the system is much more lenient than a state college. For example, for a particular private college, the student in the first semester in the first year is allowed to drop a single class almost right before the final. For another school, their dean (of each residential college) has the authority to sign some “dean’s excuse” form for their student. if the student has the dean sign this form for her, the professor even has to allow the student to take mid term (maybe not the final as not much time left before the end of the semester - not 100% sure here) on a later day, not only being “excused” from the absence. (Some GPA-centric students – mostly the students at a top college on the pre-professional track, may even “game” this system to their advantage if their dean is super lenient – this causes some resentment of some students who live in a residential college whose dean is more strict and not so lenient.)</p>
<p>It is not a fair game for a kid whose daddy or mommy has a deep pocket! I mention this because I think the parent should sometimes be flexible with their child, unless the said child has a track record of being very irresponsible. The parents themselves may be “inadequate” or “not always right” in their own lives sometimes. So they should give their offsprings some slack once in a while (but not routinely though. Being moderate is the key.)</p>
<p>@QuantMech said:
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<p>This ^^ is a pet peeve of mine.</p>
<p>My kids currently go to school in the LAUSD. I know the LAUSD has a 50% graduation rate and feels it has to do something. However, the LAUSD also has a ‘ten absences in a year’ policy that sends the student’s name down town as a habitual truant and at least used to get the parents hauled into court (I think the trigger for that may be higher than 10 now, starting last year, from something I read.) You can be excused by a doctor’s note, however, if you go to a doctor before your child has been sick for 7 to 14 days they will say ‘come back in X days’, and assume it is a virus they can’t do anything about. </p>
<p>In their elementary school, where students were generally successful school wide, it was a social stigma to let your kid come to school sick - the sign of a poor parent. In middle school that changed, and my kids started to constantly get sick. When I complained to the nurse about the program she said it was awful in her opinion, that she would call ‘home’ to have a sick kid picked up and the parent would beg with her to let them stay because they had ‘used up’ their ten days and were scared of going to court. </p>
<p>When we are starting to see meningitis in universities of a strain for which they have not yet approved a US vaccine, I think this is an incredibly stupid policy on the part of any university. ANY health note should be assumed to be sufficient. These are adults paying their way for the privilege of class. Inspire them to come to class, or let them take the natural consequences of not being prepared for an exam. If they ARE prepared, then they are. That’s my opinion.</p>
<p>Auto fail/grade reduction policies often seem to me to be an admission by the teacher that you don’t really need to show up to every class to do well in the course. Otherwise students with poor attendance would have poor performance on their own, and the teacher would not have to codify it in the syllabus. I have often seen professors include a participation component in the grading system, which incentivized not just showing up, but actually interacting in class. It also ended up being a lot more forgiving on absences if you are otherwise an active and engaged student.</p>
<p>This does seem pretty harsh to me. A student missing a week in case of illness would need to maintain an A in order to pass the class. When D has taken classes that counted attendance such as seminar classes or classes in performing arts, students were usually given at least a couple of “free” absences before grades started getting docked. A student missing too many classes because of illness would be advised to withdraw from the class. </p>
<p>As for whether the student could continue if given a C, or would be better off repeating - this would IMHO be something that the student and the department would determine. A "C"could indicate a lack of affinity for the subject matter that might be resolved with more time and repetition at least to the point where the student is “good enough”, or poor study habits. The latter is probably easier to correct if understanding of basic concepts is intact. I would want to know how much time the student had actually spent on the class, whether they had done all the reading and suggested problems, and whether they had made use of resources such as tutors.</p>
<p>I myself would hesitate to make a student wait until next spring to take the second half of a sequential course and risk forgetting too much of the background learned in the first half, if she has already learned enough that a concentrated review over the summer could get her up to speed. If she does return to her school and needs to wait nearly a year, I would try to find some way to see that she is able to continue to review what she learned from first semester.</p>
<p>I agree that the penalty seems harsh in this case. I’d just like to add that for many types of class attendance matters to other students and to the instructor. Most of the courses that I teach involve teamwork of one kind or another (group projects, participation in debate teams, etc.). It’s essential in such cases for team members to be reliable and to pull their oar in the joint work. Even in the case where all assignments are individual, however, especially in small classes the active participation or at the very least attention by all or most members of a class enhances the learning of other students and definitely inspires the professor. We don’t like talking into a tape recorder or to the wall. So the group as a whole is likely to benefit when attendance is the norm and participation is active.</p>
<p>What I’ve just written does not apply to most large-lecture classes. But it does affect smaller classes and discussion sections, labs, team projects, and, in the case of art schools, the “crits” that fellow students provide to their classmates’ work.</p>
<p>OP, if I were you, my question would not be whether attendance should count, but whether a person should be failed for staying in bed 4 times while sick, when the professor said that it would not be held against the person. I agree that it seems pretty draconian on the part of the school, and I empathize that you are confronted with a difficult decision about whether to send her back with an F (and maybe with a delayed schedule toward graduation, as she may have been thrown off sequence by a full year, with the F in this sequential class).</p>
<p>As a parent, I would want to see the way attendance was addressed on the syllabus and other published college attendance policies. Is the F consistent with those policies? I would want to know exactly how many times she was absent – ear infection and otherwise. It is important to know whether she relied on what they said at the beginning of the illness – meaning that she stayed in bed because they had assured her at the outset that it would be OK – or if she just stayed in bed and discussed it with them after the fact. “OK” would seem to mean that she would not be marked down academically for the absences. If the assurances were given after the absences, but before the drop date, that also matters.</p>
<p>I think the school should enforce representations that were made while she still had other options (going to class sick or dropping the course). Although, I guess she would be off-sequence for graduation, in any event, if she had dropped the course. The discussion needs to go beyond the professor, if she may be dropping out of school over this, or delayed in her graduation for one or two semesters over this. The Dean of Students and/or department head, I guess, should be contacted, if the advisor is not reachable.</p>
<p>Having a paper trail would help (emailed assurances) but your D’s testimony about what was said is better than nothing.</p>
<p>As a practical matter, if there’s any way this can be fixed by taking a summer course anywhere, that’s probably better than having her drop out of college or spend an extra year there. But you would need assurance, in advance, that they would accept the transfer credits to fulfill the requirement.</p>
<p>Also, as a practical matter, four absences sounds like a lot for this, especially if the course was not taught on consecutive days. 4 consecutive misses in a Monday, Wednesday, Friday course is 8 days off. Little kids are routinely dosed with Advil and packed off to school with ear infections, with a day or less at home. That’s not ideal, of course, but I think she would have a more compelling case if it were more understandable on a common-sense basis.</p>
<p>I don’t know enough about music to comment on whether a C in this course means that she’s in the wrong major.</p>
<p>I teach, and I lost track once that I gave an extension to a student who had surgery right before an major project was due. When they saw their final grade – docked for lateness – they politely asked if I took into account the extension. I realized my mistake and submitted a grade change. My advice to your daughter – be polite, firm. And from now on, please don’t erase a school related email until the final grade is in . . . . </p>
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<p>No, it’s not. Usually poor attendance does mean poor performance in the class, but often professors have to deal with small armies of students who show up in their offices arguing about their grades - even if they did poorly for performance reasons. Often these professors have to discuss with the students why they failed, what they did wrong, etc. With a solid attendance policy, many professors avoid the haggling about what’s excused and what’s not, how many absences are too many, etc. (IF you don’t believe me, check out the Chronicle of Higher Education forums sometime and lurk in the threads about teaching. Students have made up EVERYTHING. Including printing out fake obituaries for not-dead grandparents.)</p>
<p>But I’ve had a lot of classes with rigid attendance policies where class attendance was important. Many of them were discussion-based classes, where a few students missing could really change the dynamic of the class. Another was an acting class, where students had to participate in activities related to the course material. Some professors just feel that attendance in their class is really important, and write their syllabi accordingly.</p>
<p>Most college classes meet 2-3 times a week. If you miss 4 days of class, you’ve missed 1.5 to 2 weeks of class. That’s a lot of class. If you’re sick enough to miss 4 days (especially if they aren’t consecutive), then you’re probably sick enough to go to the doctor’s office and get a note. I had an ear infection that turned into a throat and eye infection in my first year of grad school, and you usually need antibiotics to conquer that thing (assuming it’s bacterial, of course, but you should get checked just in case).</p>
<p>I see it this way (and this isn’t directed at your D, OP) - attendance counts for work, right? I mean, a lot of work you could probably do from your home office as long as you had a computer and a phone. But you could be a great employee otherwise and get fired if you missed a lot of work consecutively - even if it were for a legitimate reason like a mild to moderate infection. Your boss expects you to be there. </p>
<p>BUT I agree that this is probably just a misunderstanding - a miscommunication between the two professors. A polite inquiry should get the issue cleared up. If it does not, I urge OP’s daughter to meet with one or both of the professors of the class first before she approaches the department chair.</p>
<p>*
And oh, for those worried about people going to class sick and infecting others, I’d also like to point out that you are most contagious for an ear infection before you even start exhibiting symptoms. By the time you have symptoms and are on antibiotics, you’re no longer contagious, especially past the first day or two. Just a thought.</p>
<p>I know that it is commonly said that people are most likely to transmit infections before they have recognizable symptoms. But I wonder if one of the M.D.s in the forum could kindly provide me with references to the medical literature, where that has been determined? Also, does that apply equally to viral infections and bacterial infections?</p>
<p>First of all, I would NOT wait for the professor to respond, but would start taking it up the chain immediately. Have your D talk to an academic adviser, a residence dean, etc. Get a note from the doctor she saw that confirms that she was sick during the time in question.</p>
<p>Almost all courses have some provision for excused absences. In a class that meets four days a week, you would almost inevitably run into situations in which students might have multiple absences for totally legitimate reasons. While I understand that, no matter how legitimate a reason might be, at a certain point if you aren’t there you aren’t there, missing the equivalent of one week of a twelve to fourteen week course seems within the bounds of reasonable attendance. </p>
<p>What I really don’t understand at all is why you are thinking of pulling your kid from school over this. As you’ve described it, the initial conditions you set out presented making her come home as a punitive response to irresponsibility or poor performance. Since she has done well in all her courses but one, and only failed this one because of something you acknowledge as unfairness on the prof’s part, making her leave school would just compound the inflexibility that led to the original grade. If this means that your daughter needs to take an extra semester and you can’t pay for it, that’s something you can work out with her, but it shouldn’t require her to withdraw now.</p>
<p>I do think that the fact that she was running a “C” even without the absences in the first part of a sequence needed for her major is a problem, and something you need to consider. Can she succeed as a music major if she isn’t going to do well in the theory courses? Would it be possibly for her to major in something else and still take a number of performance based courses? If she can’t retake this course until next spring, will she still graduate on time, and if not, is the music major worth an extra year?</p>
<p>Juillet nailed it. I didn’t collect homework for many years, figuring adults would practice since homework was just like the exams. But I had too many students (and sometimes their parents) up in arms about low test scores and my failure to prepare them for exams. So, now I collect and grade homework.</p>
<p>I used to not have an attendance policy, but too many students were missing instruction and failing as a result. See, failure was my fault for not demanding attendance . . . You see the problem? Now that I have an attendance policy, I am just waiting for the next string of students (and sometimes their parents) to start in on the unfairness of a black/white there not there policy as some situations should so clearly be “excused.” </p>
<p>OP, your issue is not the unfairness of an attendance policy but the message your student got from the prof. </p>
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<p>Why on earth would you not wait for the professor to respond? OP’s daughter could be potentially elevating something that absolutely does not need to be escalated. On her end, she could be doing a lot of potentially stressful legwork that is not necessary; and on the other end, she could be unnecessarily annoying the professors involved (professors, like most people, don’t appreciate folks going over their head when they were willing to deal with the problem face on).</p>
<p>Furthermore, if the professor’s out of town, the department chair may not even be able to proceed until the professor returns so that he or she can communicate with that professor about what happened. At least at my university, an academic advisor wouldn’t be able to proceed without that communique, and most department chairs wouldn’t want to even if they could. Unless they’ve already left for a summer extended research leave or something, likely he’ll be back soon enough. I’m not sure how long ago OP’s daughter emailed her, but this thread was started two days ago - and on a Friday, no less. Two days is like two seconds in academia.</p>
<p>I have heard professors say that once a student escalates things unnecessarily, it makes them much less willing to be flexible with that student in the future. It’s a protective mechanism. If this is a professor (or professors, in this case) that your daughter may have to take again - especially in a small department - you’ll want to proceed as politely as possible.</p>
<p>I’m not saying that she shouldn’t escalate if the professors are truly being unreasonable, but at least give them the benefit of the doubt and the opportunity to clear things up first, unless it’s clear he’s avoiding the student or taking far too long.</p>
<p>I do agree with getting a doctor’s note in the meantime, provided a doctor was seen during the period in question.</p>