The administration of Stuyvesant High School is looking to introduce an official cut policy. Principal Stanley Teitel proposed the idea during the faculty meeting on January 29.
Teitel thought of the new policy while looking over first term attendance records. “The concern is that students have a lot of cuts and still get good grades. The state requires that student sit through 200 minutes of a subject class every week,” Teitel said. “There is a large discrepancy between excused absences and attendance.”
The current draft of the policy states that a certain number of unexcused absences in a marking period ensures a student cannot receive above a certain grade. “If a student has three or more cuts in a marking period, he or she cannot get a grade above 90,” said Teitel.
He first discussed it with his cabinet and the assistant principals relayed it to their respective departments. “Some departments, like the foreign language department, were thrilled,” Teitel said. “Class participation is a big factor in those subjects.”
“Everybody’s been aware of the inconsistencies in the way teachers address cutting for a long time,” Assistant Principal English Eric Grossman. “This policy is a forward move towards assessment. In some classes, a student can not show up and receive a good grade, and in other classes, the same number of unexcused absences would garner a bad grade.”
“The policy is a little bit harsh,” senior class president Michelle Lee said. “Mistakes could be made. […] It should be a little more lenient.”
Grossman hopes that the policy will reign in the most excessive cutters and bring awareness of attendance to teachers who have not taken it into account. “I have heard two concerns about this policy that are quite opposite: that is policy is too lax or this policy will punish students for faulty record keeping,” he said. “I believe this policy is a baseline. It gives the teacher freedom to create more stringent policies. And having this policy ideally will promote better record keeping and gives the student incentive to correct mistake.”
The policy is directed toward repeat offenders. “A couple of unaccounted absences will not affect you,” said Grossman.
“Overall, Stuyvesant has roughly 97 to 98 percent attendance. This policy is supposed to carry the message out to go to class,” Teitel said.
