Landmark Attendance Policy 

*Updated for 2024-2025 School Year*

Purpose: 

Attendance is the First Vital Behavior identified at Landmark High School and critical to the success of students.  Chronic Absenteeism is the number one predictor that a student is at risk of failing in school.  Research identifies chronic absenteeism as attendance that has fallen below 90%.  For this reason, LHS has established 90% attendance as the expectation. 

At Landmark we have 8 mini-terms varying from 20 to 24 days, depending on the term.  As a result student absences will have a much greater impact on the work the student can get done in order to be successful.  Just three absences in a given class can drop a student into the chronic absenteeism category for that class and make it more difficult to do well.

Absences:

Regardless whether or not the absence is excused or unexcused, the impact of an absence is the same. Therefore, students are expected to be in class and on time every class period.  However, we do recognize that there are legitimate reasons why a student will be absent.  We will continue to mark attendance accordingly. 

According to district Policy, the following absences MAY be excused at the discretion of an administrator:

An illness, death of a family member or close family friend, medical, dental, orthodontic appointment, or medical emergency, family emergency following a visit with an administrator, or a mandatory court appearance.

Medical notes will ONLY be accepted from a doctor or judge on their letterhead.  NO other notes will be accepted.   

It is not Landmark policy to excuse a student for an entire day for doctor visits or court appearances.  

Absences will be coded according to the following codes:

Attendance Codes:

U- unexcused, S- sluff,  E- excused, V- pre-approved vacation, O- office excused,  A- activity absence,   ESD- excused school defined absence, OSS-out of school suspension, ISS- in-school suspension, M- medical excused, EC- early checkout parent excused, TP- parent excused tardy, L- late tardy (10-30 minutes late), T- tardy, TM– medical tardy, DT- tardy detention served, DL- late tardy detention served.

Parents cannot excuse tardies other than at initial arrival to school.

School Response to Tardiness:

Tardies: 

When students are tardy to class, they not only miss out on valuable instruction at the beginning of a class period, they also cause a disruption to the learning of other students in the class. While there are understandable extenuating circumstances from time to time, habitual tardiness can be avoided and will be addressed through lunch detention.

Lunch Detention:

Students will need to take responsibility for tardies by serving lunch detention to make up for lost instructional time. 1 Lunch detention served will remove 1 tardy. If students do not take responsibility for serving lunch detention, they will be notified of their need to serve detention and be brought to lunch detention until they have made up for each tardy, for instructional time that was missed. 

School Response To Absences:

Most consequences for chronic absenteeism are natural consequences—the student will struggle to be successful in his/her classes.  Students and their parents must understand that chronic absenteeism impacts the whole classroom, the teachers’ ability to provide meaningful learning opportunities for all students, and office staff who must follow up on all attendance issues.  The school will respond to students who exceed a reasonable number of absences and become chronically absent.  

As students accumulate absences the school will make every effort to send out notices informing parents where their student is at in relation to their attendance. 

Parent Notifications:

Parents are expected to monitor their student’s attendance.  This can be done by logging on to the district Infinite Campus student information system.  Parent help is available at www.nebo.edu/parents. The school will make a persistent effort to contact the parent to make them aware if their student is in danger of being unenrolled from a class for attendance reasons.  A Chronically Absent Concern Letter will be sent via email and a phone call to the parent/guardian after 2 absences, this is the point in a mini term where a student falls into the “chronically absent” category).  After 3 absences in a given class, a Chronically Absent Notification Letter will be emailed to the student’s parent/guardian signifying that with the next absence, the student’s class(es) will be dropped for the remainder of the current mini-term. If there are extenuating circumstances, please notify the administration. 

Administrator Meeting:

Once a student accumulates 4 absences, the student will receive an Administrative letter in email accompanied by a phone call or text message notifying that the student’s class(es) have been dropped for the remainder of the current mini-term.  When students are unenrolled from a class, the class will need to be retaken during another term.  Either prior to the next mini-term or upon return, a plan will be discussed between the student and an administrator indicating what can and should be done to prevent further absences. The purpose of this meeting with the administrator is to discuss which program will most likely lead to student success.  Students who find themselves in this situation will be required to make a case as to why it is in their best interest, and in the best interest of the school, to continue with their regular day school schedule despite their chronic absenteeism.  They should be prepared to explain why they have been unable to get to school consistently and what they are able and willing to do to improve their situation. 

 The administrator may make one of a possible number of decisions including:

• Allow the student to remain in their current schedule with no changes

• Allow the student to remain in day school with changes to their schedule

• Refer the student to the Adult Education program

If a student accumulates more than three absences in a mini-term and the schedule is dropped, the student is placed on contract. If a second schedule drop occurs in the school year, parents will meet with the administrators to create a plan for the student.  At this time, the student may be removed from the high school program and referred to the Adult Education program. 

Preplanned Extended Absences and Extended Illnesses

If a family plans on having their student out of school for more than three (3) days, students or parent/guardian should meet with the school administrator to explain the situation.  A decision will be made as to whether or not it will be in the best interest of the student and the school to keep the student enrolled for that mini term.  Options include; withdrawing the student from the current mini term and resuming a regular schedule the following mini term, maintaining the current schedule and completing assignments from home via the internet under the direction of the teachers, removing the current schedule and working from home in online credit recovery courses, or a combination of these options. 

Student Illness At School

It is the goal and responsibility of the school to keep the learning environment safe.  Students who come to school sick or become sick while at school, will be required to return home.  The absence will be excused.

Checking Out Of School

Any student who leaves school during the school day is required to check out at the attendance office. In order for the absence to be validly excused, the student must contact his/her parent/guardian at that time so that the secretary can document the reason for the absence.  If the student does not check out at the attendance office, the absence will be unexcused.  In an emergency, a school administrator may approve the checkout at the time, pending parental confirmation by telephone or note.  When a student checks out and leaves the school for a legitimate purpose and then returns to school later in the day, he/she is required to check in at the attendance office.  

Due Process

Because each term is so short, any attendance appeals to the principal must take place promptly after the parent has been notified regarding an attendance decision.