by: Emily Boisvert

SANFORD – Absences at Lee County High School are a rising concern for the teachers and staff. Jennifer Heitin, a counselor at LCHS, is in charge of the new attendance make-up schedule and setting the make-up work. 

“We have created a schedule of attendance make-ups that are after school and there’s a variety of days that were published and put out to the students,” said Heitin. “It’s not every single day after school, but like some weeks we might only have one or two sessions. Other weeks we might have more but there are gonna be plenty of opportunities after school every week.”

Students are allowed only eight absences in a class. After that, students are in danger of failing a class due to state laws that say all students must be in class for 90 percent of the semester in order to receive credit for a course.

Students who need to go to these make-ups need to be ready to work right after school. “They are going to be held in the media center, starting at 3:10 in the afternoon until 4:40,” Heitin explained. “So you get a full hour and a half and that will recover one full class period missed.” 

Making up these absences is very important to the education and learning of students. “Attendance is really important because when you miss classes for whatever reason, you’re missing instruction time and when you miss instruction time it’s really hard to do well academically. Heitin said. “We are trying to sort of drill how the concept of coming to school is important because we get the most out of it when we’re at school.

“People above the school level, like at the district level, have decided that if you miss too many days then you should be required to make up your time,” Heitin continued.

When students miss class not only do they miss instructional time, they also miss work and it can be hard for them to catch back up. “Most students who have missed classes are usually owing work so they are working on missing assignments they can turn into their teachers, so working on late work,” Heitin said.

Although you don’t have to go to the make ups if you have less than 8 absences you can still come to get your work done. “Anybody is eligible, anybody is allowed to come. We typically don’t see people who have missed fewer than eight days because the cut off is eight days,” Heitin said.

The remaining schedule of make-up dates for the fall semester is as follows:

Nov. 8, 9, 13, 14, 15, 16, 20, 27, 28, 29, 30

Dec. 5, 6, 7, 11, 12