There has been a great deal of discussion at school board meetings and in the media recently about school attendance and truancy rates, locally and nationwide, highlighting the negative effects on a child’s education as well as the school district’s finances. Our students are safest and most successful when parents and schools are communicating well.  To that end, this article provides information that will help students and their guardians understand recent steps taken by the State of California and the Davis School District related to school attendance.

Many parents believe that “excusing” an absence helps insure that income flows to the school district. This is not correct.  Parents need to know that know the status and coding of absences is completely unrelated to collecting school funding.  When a student is absent, whether excused or unexcused, the State does not fund that day of absence for any reason. Absences are lost income to the district, period.   

Parents need to know that, in conformance with California Education Code, the Davis school district will now only use three codes for school absences and those codes mean specific things. Those codes are: Excused, Unexcused and Unverified.

When students are absent from school, California law allows students to be excused for illness and appointments related to health, along with some other less common reasons (* see the information at the end of this article). Excused absences carry the right to make up work and a period of time in which to do that with no penalty.

Other than the specified reasons allowed by law, all other absences are unexcused.  This is not a district decision; it is California Education Code and required attendance accounting.  When students are unexcused, they do not have rights to make up the missed work, and if they accumulate more than three days of unexcused absence, they may be subject to discipline and other truancy intervention.  Obviously, it is important to avoid unexcused absences.

In the past, parents have been able to call the school and have an absence approved so that the school automatically excused the student.  This is no longer permissible.  Parent calls to the school certainly account for the student’s whereabouts which is paramount to keeping him or her safe.  However, it is the reason for the absence, not the call that determines the status of the absence. Currently, we mark all unexplained absences unverified which means that we do not know where that child was or why he or she was absent.   The parent or guardian has three school days to call the school and provide the reason so the absence can be coded either “unexcused” or “excused,” based on the reason given.  If no call is received after three school days, the absence code becomes “unexcused” and cannot be changed thereafter.

When children are ill, we all want them to recover sensibly and also avoid infecting others. Likewise, extraordinary situations may occur which require being out of school.  However, in the case of parents allowing absences for other non-essential reasons, we hope parents will weigh the lost instructional time for their child as well as the lost funding to the school against the reason for the absence.  

Each school offers short term independent study to students whose parents are removing them for five or more days. If the students do the work, the missed days may then become instructional days, not absences, and state funding is allotted for those days.

Please call your school if you have further questions or need more information.  We want to work together for the benefit of all our students.  Our attendance secretary, Nancy Cardinal, can be reached at ncardinal@djusd.k12.ca.us or 757-5330, extension 112.  

* Excused absences: illness; quarantine; medical, dental, optometrical, chiropractic service; funeral for immediate family member, limited to one day in California, three days out of state; jury duty; medical appt for a child in the custody of the student; justifiable reason (court appearance, religious holiday/ceremony, employment conference) with written request of parent/guardian and approved by the principal or designee. Ed Code 48205: