School Policy Tying Grades, Attendance Under Fire : Education: Parents’ protest prompts Moorpark district board to rethink the practice. But, superintendent notes, it is not uncommon.

A Moorpark High School policy of automatically lowering the grades of students who have five unexcused absences is coming under fire from some school officials.

Prompted by the protests of one student’s parents, the Moorpark Unified School District board plans to re-examine the district’s practice of tying grades to high school attendance.

School board member Clint Harper said he disagrees with the policy, which was established by a previous board.

“An academic grade should reflect academic performance and not work habits,” said Harper, who teaches physics at Moorpark College.

Parents Mike and Suzanna Austin complained to the board this week that their 15-year-old son risks failing two classes because teachers slashed his grades after he had accrued five unexcused absences for skipping school.

“It’s not a good policy,” Mike Austin told the board this week. “It penalizes (poorly performing) students academically. We ought to be building them up academically.”

But Supt. Thomas Duffy said studies show that how much students learn is closely tied to how often they are in school.

“It’s not an uncommon policy” to punish poor attendance by lowering grades, he said.

Indeed, some other high schools in Ventura County also tie academic grades to attendance.

But last year state education officials ordered Nordhoff High School in Ojai to change an attendance rule that was very similar to the one at Moorpark High.

Under Nordhoff High’s former policy, teachers automatically lowered students’ marks by one letter grade when they had eight absences, Nordhoff Assistant Principal Susana Arce said.

Nordhoff excused absences only for extended illnesses lasting three or more days, a funeral of an immediate family member or a court subpoena, she said.

In contrast, Moorpark High and most other high schools excuse absences for illnesses of any length, funerals of immediate family members, religious holidays and medical appointments.

A parent challenged the Nordhoff policy and the state Board of Education ruled that school administrators cannot dictate how a teacher grades students, Arce said.

Nordhoff changed its policy, giving teachers the right to fail students who accumulate four unexcused absences.

But Arce said school officials are looking for ways to tighten up the policy because it has proved too lenient.

More students are skipping classes and more parents are taking their children out of school for various reasons, Arce said.

“Now we have more family trips,” she said. “We’re not happy about that.”

Despite the similarities between Nordhoff’s former attendance rule and Moorpark’s current guidelines, the protests against the Moorpark policy may not go all the way to state education officials in Sacramento.

Rather than pressing to overturn the Moorpark policy, the Austins said they only want their son to be able to make up for the grade points he lost as punishment for missing school.

Moorpark High School Principal Cary Dritz has agreed to meet with the Austins Tuesday to review their complaint.

Suzanna Austin said she was not aware her son was skipping school until she got a letter last month informing her that his grades would be dropped because he had five unexcused absences during the semester.

“I was working and took him to school in the morning and was not aware that he did not stay the whole day,” Austin said.

Although Moorpark High has an automated system for calling parents whenever their child misses school, Suzanna Austin said she never received any such calls.

Despite the Austins’ concerns and the state’s decision on the Nordhoff policy, some Moorpark High teachers said they believe the school should continue to adhere to its strict attendance policy.

“The heart and soul of my class is what happens in there every day,” history teacher Larry Jones said. “It’s not the tests and the information.”

And, he added, “I can’t teach if the student’s not there.”