Students in Absentia : With daily absenteeism averaging 17%, the LAUSD needs a policy that promotes attendance. Some schools have started setting their own rules.

Imagine: You’re a department manager in a business, and absenteeism plagues your operation.

Joe leaves early when the Dodgers are in town. Martha parties on the weekends and misses Mondays and Fridays. Sharon stays home to help her mom. Daniel calls in sick when the surf’s up.

When they do come to work, they’re so out of sync with what’s happening that they might as well be gone.

Here’s the bad part: You can’t fire them. In fact, your company doesn’t have a clear rule telling you what you can do to make them show up--just some vague guidelines that are interpreted differently by different managers.

That’s the scene in many Los Angeles schools, where daily absenteeism averages 17%.

“Mrs. Mack,” Nicole asked, returning from a self-inflicted holiday, “did I miss anything yesterday?”

“No, Nicole,” I assured her, “the class sat around waiting for your return.”

Of course students miss something when they’re not in school. They miss group discussions, peer evaluations, responding to the literature we’re studying, class debates, the introduction of new concepts and lots more--activities which can not be “made up for” with homework from the back of a textbook.

Although the LAUSD does not keep statistics on the correlation between number of absences and Ds and Fs, any teacher will testify to the increased probability of “fails” when students are absent too much.

So why don’t we have a districtwide policy which promotes attendance?

The district says it’s up to each school to set its own broad rules. As a classroom teacher, I am officially expected to base students’ grades for “work habits and cooperation” partly on attendance and promptness. I am not supposed to factor attendance into academic grades. I am supposed to give students a chance to make up work that they miss during any absence excused by notes from home.

Some schools have used their autonomy to take a firm position.

At Canoga Park High School, Principal Larry Higgins says attendance is up 3% since its Leadership Council of teachers, administrators and parents declared that seniors absent 15 times during spring semester can’t walk across the stage at graduation.

Principal Henry Gradillas and the School Based Management group at Birmingham High instituted a more specific policy: Twenty days’ absence in a 90-day semester results in a failing grade for the class.

And, as reported a week ago, other high schools with school-based management are beginning to follow suit.

However, most L. A. high schools do not lay down clear rules for students, and truancy is common.

Kids write excuses for one another. Teachers joke that anybody who can’t fake an excuse shouldn’t be allowed to graduate. In the Valley there are well-known “ditching houses” near schools, free of parents during the day, where truant pupils can watch TV and party.

Some administrators’ main concern seems to be not getting the kids to school, just the money they produce.

Teachers in my school last spring were encouraged by the administration to tell students who had been absent to turn in notes giving medical excuses, regardless of the real reasons. Medically caused absences do not reduce the official average daily attendance on which state aid is based.

The students even get silent messages from the grown-ups saying that being in class isn’t terribly important.

On the first day of school this semester, five students informed me they would regularly miss fifth period so they could participate in sports--two students on football days and three on track days. I know it’s un-American to suggest that an English class is more important than football, but couldn’t the district schedule the games an hour later?

Some progress is being made. Brenda English, a deputy district attorney, heads a program which gets the D.A.’s office after parents whose children are truant. The state is putting pressure on the school district to take attendance every hour to eliminate “selective-period” absences.

I pressure my students to take responsibility for their attendance by not accepting late papers and, in defiance of district policy, not providing makeup work. I’ve had students come to class when they wanted to stay home because they knew I wouldn’t accept their late papers. And they felt good about it.

We can’t say being in school is important and then do things which make it OK for students to stay out. I ask my students to ask themselves, each time they’re considering staying home: “If you were working, earning $10 an hour, would you have stayed home knowing you’d lose $60 for the day?”

Most of the time they say no.