A Letter from the Principal

“You can’t teach an empty desk.”  That statement has become a cliché among educators.  Like most clichés, however, it has become one because it contains so much truth.  Whether you are a parent reading this short letter with your son or daughter in mind, or a student assessing your own future, I’d like to ask you to stop and focus on a few simple truths.

Let us consider the following facts:

1.               Science Hill High School has a good attendance rate, currently about 93 - 94 %.

2.               Poor attendance is a serious problem, not for the school per se, but more for the individual students who suffer from it.

3.               Regardless of the form that makeup work takes, it is inferior to the original classroom instruction that was missed.  This is true of independent work, correspondence work, Credit Recovery, or any other form of makeup.

4.               Students benefit if we concentrate not so much on grades, but rather on LEARNING.

5.               While makeup work may improve the grade after an absence, it is MUCH more difficult to improve the loss of learning that it causes.

6.               Lost learning occurs no matter the reason for the absence.  Whether the cause is a legitimate illness, an important visit to a prospective college, or simply laying out of class, the loss of learning is the same.

Does that mean that students who are ill should come to school?  Or that students should never takes a couple of days to visit a college campus?  Of course not. 

What it does mean is that both parents and students should recognize that regardless of the reason for the absence, there is a real cost to the student.  Choices have to be made, and there is much to consider.  Let’s just not fool ourselves that an absence, whether excused or unexcused, is free of consequences.