This school year, Charlottesville students might have to think twice before they hit the snooze button, roll back into their sheets and write off school as a lost cause for the day. A new Charlottesville High School attendance policy has been created that significantly differs from the somewhat “lackadaisical policy” that many C.H.S student became accustomed to in the recent years. The policy mandates that a student may only miss fifteen individual class periods before they suffer significant consequences. While the thought of missing fifteen individual class periods throughout the year doesn’t necessarily instill fear in the hearts of students, the thought of losing class accreditation, regardless of one’s grade in said class, does. “If you think about it, fifteen days is a lot,” says principal Dr. Eric Irizarry.

The administration hopes that this encourages more regular attendance, while noting that the policy may not be perfect. “We want to make sure that students that can be here are here. The second thing is, there may be some underlying barriers to students attending school that we don’t know,” noted Irizarry   This highlights something we already know: that one-size-fits-all policies have myriad effects, depending on the student. In this case, particularly, it becomes clear that there are students at our school who need to be in class as much as possible to retain information, while there are others still who can excel regardless of whether or not they attend class regularly. This change in policy also overlooks students who have other personal obligations or conflicts that inhibit their ability to come to school, such as silent illnesses–depression, anxiety, work, transportation issues, or caring for younger siblings or elderly relatives.

But the most vocal of those student affected are the “overachievers.” Said one K.T.R. staff member, “Why should this affect me? Can’t I still get away with missing 30 class periods if I have an A?” But this may be more of a reflection on the administration and the difficulty of classes at C.H.S. Says Irizarry, “In my opinion, if a student misses an exorbitant amount of classes in that period and they still have an A, then we may need to look at the rigor of the class.” In addition to making students more accountable and reliable as a whole, the administration also hopes this reflects the administration’s expectations of students and the rigor of expectations at the college course level. “So, this is not outside of the box, and it will be preparing students for the accountability that they receive at a college level.”

In years prior, C.H.S. students have been known for their less than stellar attendance in comparison to other high schools in the area. This could be contributed to the previous policy, or lack thereof. “When we talked to teachers, parents, and community members, one area that Charlottesville High School was different than the other three highs schools in the area is that we didn’t have a clear attendance policy as it related to period absences.” says Irizarry. Periods absences, it has been shown, are indirectly related to a student’s grade in said class: the more one skips, the lower their grade is. However, it is quite difficult to measure if a student is failing because they need support or they simply aren’t interested in attending class itself.

This new, less-ambiguous policy aims to tackle a quite complex issue that plagues C.H.S. Many commend this effort for its attempt to comprehensively solve the attendance issue–without this change in policy C.H.S. would continue to ignore one of the larger problems it has faced in the past few years. But the change is still just a temporary solution to a problem larger than C.H.S. itself that will always impact schools across the country.