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Tardiness Policy: Students must be on time to all classes. If they are late, they sign in on a sheet of paper that is posted in each class room. The student is then obligated to serve a detention on Tuesday or Thursday. Unserved detentions will result in further consequences (such as dismissal or Saturday school) as assigned by their administrator. Individual teachers retain the right of having students serve detentions in their classrooms. A student is considered tardy if they are not in the classroom before the bell rings.

What is considered to be poor attendance? According to the Truancy Intervention Program (TIP), a child is considered truant if he or she is absent without legal excuse for three or more class periods on three days.

What is an excused absence? Acceptable excuses may include; sickness, religious holiday, extreme family emergency, doctor's visits. However, most doctor's appointments should be made outside of school hours. 

What is not an excused absence? Unacceptable excuses are; staying home to babysit, work, travel, cold weather, missed the bus, overslept or just did not want to go to school.

What is good attendance? Many employers have set limits on the number of sick days available. How many does your employer allow? Some districts do not allow more than 5 unexcused absences in the entire school year? Harding does not have a magic number. We want you in school and on time to classes. However, if students are missing more than 4 days in a trimester, students may be contacted about their attendance. There are consequences to poor attendance.

What are the consequences? Honestly, we prefer to think of the positive results of good attendance. Students have better grades, graduation rates improve, test results improve, students are happier, staff is happier, school life is more enjoyable, acceptance into post-secondary schools increases, success in school improves success in life. While we prefer the positvie, here are the negatives as provided by Ramsey County's TIP Program.

First letters to go home advising parents/guardians of an attendance/tardiness issue.

Second there is a parent meeting hosted by Ramsey County.

Third, if attendance/tardiiness does not improve students are enrolled in TIP where there attendance/tardiness is consistently monitored.

Fourth, students, parents, teachers and administrators have a School Attendance Review Team (SART) meeting. At this meeting an attendance contract will be negotiated.

Fifth, the county has the option of prosecuting the student, parent or both. At that point, probation officers are appointed and attendance is tracked daily.

Other possible consequences; the state has the right to withdraw driving priviledges of truant students; students can be fined up to $100.00;  a student could be removed from their home; a student could be placed in a short term group home or a student could be placed under court-ordered house arrest.

 As we said we really prefer to focus on the positive. The paperwork for the anything else is just not fun for anyone. We would prefer to use staff for teaching and not enforcement..

Check out the Ramsey County Web page for more clarification. http://www.co.ramsey.mn.us/attorney/SPTIP.asp

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