As far as I know, the "head guy", or Superintendent, trumps the school admin. The Superintendent is the boss of the administration - if he's approved it, that's it. If a school administration is going against his actions without approval or some other process, that's big trouble for them.
As for unexcused absences... It depends on what the school counts as unexcused, how unexcused absences are made up, and how students are notified of unexcused absences.
In our school district, students are notified within 24 hours of their unexcused absence so a parent can call in if they forgot. They have the trimester to make them up, but it's once you have more than 4 unexcused absences that problems start (1 class with 4 unexcused absences = F). The way we make them up, if need be, is by staying after school for an hour. The school is also lenient about what counts as excused - if a parent calls you in, for whatever reason, you're excused. If that's your district's policy, as stupid as it sounds, you may have to have the students' parents call them out every day of the competition next year. Stupid things have happened - a sub has marked me unexcused absent for a class before because he marked the absent person whose name was above mine present and switched us. Had I already had unexcused absences, I would have had to make that absence up after school, no matter how unfair it was.
Now, how is it different for your district? Are you not notified than an absences is unexcused until the end of the term? In that case, the school is, in my opinion, pretty much making an attempt to screw its students over. Is your school strict about what counts as excused? (Ex. only if the student is actually sick or has an appointment or funeral, etc) It kind of sounds like it.
So, for this to suddenly be a problem now, there are a few combinations of factors. It could entirely be that (a) your district has a terrible excused absence policy, (b) your school does not have effective methods of making up absences, and/or (c) you were not notified the absences were excused with enough time to make them up, which is crummy (keeping it clean). Otherwise, if you knew for months and didn't act until graduation came up, that would be crummy of you. However, this is hardly the typical action of honor students active in FIRST. That's not to say some FIRST students aren't lazy, but you get the point.
I don't know if your situation is like that above, but there must be some way to work around it. I'm not for skipping class. When I miss class due to illness (or robotics), I always make up for lost time. And it sounds like you're the type of students that will work their butts off to get caught up in class once an absence happens.
Talk to the Superintendent and school board. Mention any of the points above if they apply. Assert that despite the Superintendent's approval, the administration is not cooperating.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jcbc
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Bring the list or at least a URL.
Affirm that preventing smart and ambitious seniors from walking at graduation because they were at a FIRST event is wrong. WRONG.
(I wouldn't mention this since the reaction might be negative, but in my opinion, FIRST is much more of a learning experience than years' worth of traditional school.)
I'm not for one pressuring a school district this way (though it is so much nicer when they cooperate
), but it really looks like you have no other choice.
So, the long and short of it... I don't know the unexcused policy, but it sounds pretty bogus. Talk to school board and superintendent. I would give the admin the list, but it looks like they're beyond help.
C