Chelsea (MA) High School students interviewed by petition holders speak about how their attendance is hitting their grades hard, they can drop down from a B to a C with a single unexcused absence from how strict it is- students, families, even staff are all negatively affected by this policy but there has been no change to it.

Chelsea High School has an attendance policy that is connected to grades for students attending. According to the official posted CHS Student Attendance Policy, it states “a student with a passing grade in a class who accumulates three (3) or more unexcused absences for that class will receive a penalty of ten (10) points in that student’s average. Such a penalty will not drop an average below 60%, but it can come close. Data shows the immense correlation between grades and unexcused absences, where students with unexcused absences have grades that drop down and typically take a long time to come back up.

If the CHS policy continues to be strict, the student's mental health and grades that are impacted by the current policy will continue to stay unhealthy and low, ties to the overall CHS student average grade because of this policy will never be fixed. Families will worry and scold their child student which give students even more to worry about, staff and teachers will have to worry and eventually accumulate a lack of worry if low grades from attendance is the norm, and the overall outlook on the school will look bad. Signing this petition will create change into the policy so CHS can better this policy, making comfortability and adjustments so that this policy can be fair to everybody.