With the COVID-19 pandemic, many students struggled with attending school. For many students, attendance was on and off, making many students not appear within the classroom. The school was lenient for students who struggled, but now as the country slowly recovers from the pandemic, Logansport schools are closing in on attendance.

Each year, Logansport students are granted ten unexcused absences per class each semester. Throughout the entire year, there is a total of twenty per class. Once a student gets to their eleventh unexcused absence, he or she will be removed from the class and placed into a credit recovery course. Any class that has an excused absence does not count toward the ten absences. Classes such as electives will not be available under credit recovery.

“One major point that I would like everyone to know, let’s say you get removed from Geometry in November,” Attendance Dean Christian Madson said. “You must restart the entire course. Then, you only have the rest of that semester to finish the class and gain the credit. That’s an entire semester within a few weeks.”

Absences are split into multiple different categories, going under verified/excused and unexcused absences. Some ways a student can validate an absence is if they’re on a school trip, have a doctor’s note, an obituary, etc. The absence is not excused if the parent calls in or the student doesn’t show up to class. If late to a class, a student must have a pass with them.

Once a student reaches that 11th absence within the class, he or she will be offered Apex Learning if at all possible. Apex covers the core classes exclusively such as science, English, math, or history. Apex Learning is replacing the previous year’s alternative learning program, GradPoint. When removed from the class, student gets placed in a study hall. Once the student has four or more study hall classes, he or she are considered to be expelled or placed into an alternative school.

With the new policy, however, there is an incentive to attend class. Each student has the opportunity to be exempted from finals. The requirements to not take a final are to have three or fewer unexcused absences within the class, have a 70% or higher in the class, no truancies, no OSS, and no more than three periods of ISS within that class.

However, not every class gives this privilege.

“The only classes that the final exception isn’t allowed is any dual credit class,” Madson said. “This is because of the requirements by the college to take the final. That final score is required to give the college credits.”

This change is more lenient than state recommendations. In Indiana, it is recommended that students be given only five unexcused absences before being removed from the class.