Why do colleges have attendance policies

If a student is missing frequent class periods, it's safe to say they are missing significant amounts of material. This will translate in their test scores and inability to relay important information in class presentations or research papers. You can only fake knowledge for so long. Many attendance policies, mine included, deduct additional percentage points from a student's final grade due to their number of absences.

This concept is extraneous and ridiculous to me. There is absolutely no need for an additional deduction at the end of the semester, because the student's grade beforehand will give them enough insight into the detrimental effect missing class can have on their academic success. In addition to that, some college attendance policies neglect to address family emergencies or unexpected hospitalizations. If a student misses class and returns with a doctor's note, those would be considered "excused" absences.

Yet, while the term "excused" leads you to believe they're done and over with, they're still included in my final attendance count. If a family member passed away later in the semester and I had to leave town for a day or so to attend a funeral, each day that I am gone would result in a whole percentage deduction from my grade.

Not only should "excused" absences be disregarded in the total completely, but under no circumstance should students receive deductions from final grades for them, or for any type of absence. Students who go to career colleges are preparing for careers in very demanding fields that are vital to upholding our society.

In nursing schools, for example, students need to be in class so that they can learn, understand, and practice difficult skills required for a nursing career, like phlebotomy or checking blood pressure. Preparing for those critical moments starts by learning the basics in class. Because of how critical missing even a few days of class are to skill development, many schools deem students who have a handful of absences unfit to be placed in a career.

The students will have to redo the program and take measures to show up every day. The only way to earn the credentials that prove their well rounded education and readiness for career placement, students must maintain a high attendance record in all aspects of their programs, including places outside the classroom such as labs and externships.

Along with ensuring students are learning the skills necessary to succeed in their desired careers, mandatory attendance is an important part of teaching students to be punctual. Students who understand the importance of showing up on time form habits that will help them succeed in their careers after school. Schools across the country have started to upgrade their attendance tracking processes to ensure accurate attendance data in classrooms, externships, labs, and clinicals.

The most accurate attendance method on the market today is location-based attendance which uses mobile technology to track attendance.

To learn how mobile attendance tracking can ensure your school is accurately recording attendance data, schedule a demo with a member of the CourseKey team below.

Once again, yesterday, comments along these lines were made in a meeting I attended, and this morning I have found myself thinking that I really want to explain why I have a strict attendance policies in all of my classes.

I enforce a strict attendance policy in all of my classes because in my experience it has a positive impact on student success. If every student who missed class really checked with a classmate about what was missed, really caught up on the work that was missed, or really did extra work outside of class to make up for the absence, the argument from a point of view of student success might be less effective.

Professors know, however, that the reality for working-class students is that they are too busy balancing other aspects of their lives to effectively make up for absences. So missed classes are usually just that—missed parts of their education.

In courses where class content and assignments build across the semester, too many missed classes early in the year can quickly trip up a student and put them in a position where they get too far behind.

Just sitting in class, just listening to discussion, to lecture or thinking about the material is better than nothing. And, for those students who are not prepared, being in class having not done the work of preparation at least puts them in a position where they are faced with collective expectations that they have not met.

It has struck me that many of the most vocal critics of strict attendance policies were not first generation college students. I assume that this means when they went to college they had a greater sense of how to navigate the institution and, perhaps, how to skip classes and still succeed. I observed this many years ago when teaching for Duke University.

Duke students, mostly well-resourced and from backgrounds that made them culturally fluent with the expectations of higher education, knew how to work. They could skip classes and stay up all night to finish their work. They could drink and party and work and still show up for class to meet expectations.

Working-class students need faculty to help them succeed. By having a strict attendance policy in my classes, I support their education by pushing the importance of college up their priority list. Or, in some cases I am just putting it on a list that for some puts attending classes and doing classwork behind many other things. When students borrow for college they get the opportunity to learn first and then pay for it for decades—bringing the total of the loan plus interest to much more than just the tuition and expenses.

Those books remind me of debts for nothing. No, instead students borrow for college and then on top of their future debt they have one, two, or three jobs that typically pay shit. Students borrow many thousands of dollars to spend a significant amount of their time as students working for tens or hundreds of dollars in low-wage jobs that often keep them from the thing they are borrowing for!

This makes the idea of working while going to school farcical for the debt-laden student. Non-attendance may negatively impact a student financially. Course-specific attendance policies are located in course syllabi. Online course and system deadlines are based on the Central Time Zone. Any course using multiple instructional methods as outlined below will use the attendance criteria for all instructional methods assigned to the course.

For purposes of this policy, attendance at the College in web-enhanced and hybrid courses includes:. Students are expected to attend all classes and laboratory periods for which they are enrolled.