Kelly Saiz
Reporter
You’re tired and your math teacher is clearly incapable of sustaining your attention. You have a history test next period that you didn’t study for because your basketball team didn’t get back from Staples until late last night. Do you stay in school and miserably contemplate destroying your calculator or do you go home “sick” and get some rest before your practice later?
Three years ago, it wasn’t so easy for a student to get around the system in order to make allowance for their extracurricular activities. Back then, scheduling coordinator and wrestling coach Paul Gallo printed out a list of the school attendance of students on each sports team that was expected to be picked up by team captains.
A similar policy was in place for the theater program as well. “I used to print out the attendance everyday,” Mr. Gallo said. “It’s a lot of work.”
Due to budget cuts and the frequent failure on the behalf of several teams to observe the policy, attendance policy wasn’t enforced has since been eliminated. Mr. Gallo surveyed that several coaches and directors failed to honor the system. “If you’re going to run that policy, coaches have to enforce it. If a coach doesn’t want to go by it then it’s very hard. It goes from the top down,” he said.
Athletic Director Jay Egan said that the attendance policy is essentially still in effect. In fact, every student athlete signs a form that acknowledges an athletic policy in order to participate in a sport. The form states that, “Students must be present in school for a minimum of five periods in order to participate in an athletic practice or game that day.”
Indeed, it is acknowledged that directors and coaches alike want their actors and players to attend rehearsals and practices. Often they are not notified of students’ attendance in school.
The administration wishes to reinstate the awareness of coaches and directors by using electronic lists to replace the former print out process. “The challenge of this process is the implementation and enforcement,” Mr. Egan said.
Several hurdles are presented in the battle over attendance policy enforcement. Attendance lists are finalized at the same time as practice, which make the transfer of information untimely. Additionally, many coaches do not work inside the building, making it more difficult for attendance to be relayed to them.
The district nursing supervisor Sue Cesareo believes that a lack of an implemented attendance policy is harmful to the academic environment. “This is an educational facility. Our first job is to teach children. The nurse’s job is to keep children in school, send home the ill and injured to receive proper treatment, and prevent the spread of illness or disease,” she said.
Mr. Egan acknowledges that students have taken the liberty of staying home to rest during the school day in order to revive themselves for their after-school practices, insisting that this decision is not acceptable. “The primary purpose here is education,” he said, “If you’re tired, go to school and miss your next practice.”
Mrs. Cesareo is adamant about the attempts students have made at manipulating the system. She feels that improvements in the procedure are necessary. “It’s a gray area and we need to talk about it. We need something that is fair and equal,” she said.
