Rochester Community School's high school attendance incentive is problematic for two major reasons. First, it systematically discriminates against children with chronic illnesses, as chronically ill children who miss school due to their medical conditions still have those absences counted against them. The district asserts that being excused from a final exam is an incentive for students who have "good attendance" and not a punishment for those who don't. In reality, this is just a fancy way of saying that healthy children have the privilege of at least attempting to earn the incentive whereas chronically ill children NEED NOT EVEN APPLY.

Second, this attendance policy encourages children to come to school when they are ill with a contagious disease such as influenza. This is a public health issue. We can all pretend that parents and students should make the "right" decision and stay home when they are sick, but that doesn't always happen (especially when the district has created such an enticing dangling carrot).

When a district chooses to connect attendance and academic grades with an incentive, we believe that it is the responsibility of the district to: 1) take steps to ensure that ALL students have an equal shot at earning it, regardless of health status; and 2) include commonsense measures to help prevent contagious students from coming to school.

If the district insists on keeping an attendance incentive that has the potential to impact grades, we request that the following modifications be made. First, absences due to a chronically ill student's medical condition should not be counted against them. Second, when a student has a doctor's note indicating that they are too sick to come to school, that absence should also be excused.