Schools Should Set Good Examples for Students

* How interesting that several Valley schools have adopted strict rules regarding attendance and that some teachers defy Los Angeles Unified School District policy by not accepting late work or allowing students to make up work due to absence.

How can schools and teachers expect students to see the importance of regular attendance when the Los Angeles Unified School District does not?

Each fall students are tentatively placed in classes on the first day of school. And then the students are bounced back and forth among the classes until “norm day,” which occurs about five weeks after the start of school.

Are these students who are placed in a new class five weeks later going to be penalized because although they were at school, they did not attend these new classes for five weeks? Of course it’s not the students’ fault that the school had to reorganize, so they should not be penalized. So does that mean that the first five weeks of school are not important?

How can a teacher establish an organized program when the students are going to change within the first five weeks?

And how can a student establish good educational practices and feel that attendance is important, since there is no guarantee they will remain in the classes they were assigned to on that first day of school?

I am not saying abandon the stricter attendance policies. I am saying that the school district needs to be a role model to students. It needs to abandon norm day and manage the schools more effectively so the students receive the 180 days of educational instruction they deserve.

KRIS GORDON

Northridge