Attendance
ATTENDANCE
Regular school attendance is critical to your child’s success. When students are absent, they miss valuable instructional time and important social activities. Students who miss 18 or more days of school, regardless of the reason, are considered chronically absent and may negatively impact Jones Elementary’s star rating. Therefore, we ask parents to make every effort to ensure that students are in school on time and ready for instruction.
STUDENT ABSENCES
Sometimes illness and other unavoidable circumstances prevent a student from attending school. Whenever your child is absent, please submit an attendance form through your Parent Portal account (instructions below), which replaces the online Google form used previously, or provide an emailed or written note to the teacher and school office staff. Please include your child’s full name, grade, teacher, date(s) of absence, and reason for absence. If your child is absent, please note:
You must notify the office of the reason for each absence within three days. If no reason is given, or if the reason doesn’t result in an excused absence (ex. vacation), the absence is considered unexcused, and this triggers automatic notification by AACPS on the day of the absence.
Absences of more than 5 consecutive days due to illness require a doctor’s note upon return.
Students who arrive late (tardy) or leave early (early dismissal) must be in attendance at least 3 hours and 20 minutes to be counted present for the entire day. Students who attend school for between 40 minutes and 3 hours and 20 minutes will be considered absent for a half day.
Vacations are not considered excused absences. We do not give out assignments in advance for anticipated vacation absences.
Students who are absent the entire school day are not permitted to participate in school-sponsored after-school clubs or activities that day.