Revised 6/2003

Disputes Regarding Attendance and Student Performance

An ES can disagree with a parent's claim of attendance. It is the ESs job to document the student's progress towards the student standards. If a student has not made adequate progress towards the student standards, it is the ESs responsibility to assign appropriate attendance credit to that student.

However, it is also the ESs responsibility to understand what constitutes a student's progress towards the student standards. Since all students are at different ability levels and learn in different ways, the ES will need to consider each student individually. A high school student learning in an independent study curriculum would learn differently than a 3rd grade boy with A.D.D. Thus, the professional judgment of the ES should be tempered by their knowledge of the various ways in which learning occurs as well as considering if this learning is indeed progress towards the student standards.

If the ES disagrees with the parent's claim of attendance, then two roll sheets are attached together and submitted for that learning period: the parent's evaluation of attendance and the ES's evaluation of attendance. The ES's attendance roll sheet records the ESs evaluation of attendance and includes an explanation of the difference of opinions, written under the blank where the parent usually signs. If the parent disagrees with the ES's judgment, administration will have to mediate the disagreement.