ATTENDANCE POLICIES

Students are required to attend school 179 days during a school year.  Absences will be monitored and parents will be notified regularly concerning absences.  Communication may be via telephone, regular mail and email. If your student is absent from school, you should call on the morning of the absence to notify us of the absence.

Parents may personally excuse a student from attending school no more than three (3) times during each nine-week period. Students may present medical notes for absences at any time.  However, medical absences are subject to verification of authenticity.

Failure to present notes means that the absence will be recorded as an unexcused absence. If your child has a serious or recurring medical problem which may lead to excessive absences, it is recommended that the parent bring a letter from the student’s physician which includes a diagnosis and any symptoms which may cause excessive  absences.  A copy of the letter will be kept in the Attendance Office as well as the school clinic. However, parents must provide a written note stating that the student was absent for the reasons stated in the letter provided by the physician.

CONSEQUENCES OF EXCESSIVE ABSENCES AND TRUANCIES

Parents will be notified by mail when their student fails to attend school without excuse for 3 or more days (or parts of days) within a 4-week period. A second letter will be sent if the student fails to attend school for 10 or more days (or parts of days) within a 6-month period in the same year. State law provides that when the student reaches ten (10) total unexcused absences a Final Warning Notice will be sent to the parents. If there is no response, a court case will be filed with the local Justice of the Peace against the student and his/her parents, which can result in a monetary fine.

Students who are not in their assigned classes may be declared truant by the Attendance Officer.  His/her parents will be notified immediately. The consequences of truancy include the following:

              1^st Truancy................Saturday SAC

              2^nd Truancy................Saturday SAC

              3^rd Truancy................1 day TOR

              4^th Truancy................3 days ISS

Students declared truant will be placed on the Attendance Office sign-in program for a one-week period. Failure to sign in as assigned will result in a discipline referral for insubordination.  Excessive discipline referrals may result in a student being re-assigned to the KISD Alternative Center for a nine-week period. Students may also be assigned mandatory tutoring for truancy.

A student is tardy if he/she arrives late to a class and within the first 14 minutes of a class. However, after the 15 minute grace period, a student will be marked as an unexcused absence. A student tardy more than 4 times will be assigned consequences by their Assistant Principal. Parents may not excuse tardies. Car problems, oversleeping, etc., do not excuse being tardy. However, if a student has a medical appointment which results in the student arriving late for school, the tardy will be excused provided the student presents a medical excuse when he/she arrives at school and signs in.

A student under the age of eighteen may not check themselves out of school. An adult must sign the student out of school. We cannot accept telephone calls requesting that we allow a student to sign themselves out for an appointment or other reason. There is no way for us to verify the identity of the individual on the phone. In the past, we have accepted a parental note to release a student for a medical appointment if it is accompanied by a copy of the parent's military identification or driver's license. We will continue this policy. It is not necessary for a parent to sign their child in to school.  Remember a student will need to sign in with a parent note or they might be unexcused.

Beginning in 2011, KISD instituted automated phone calls home twice a day. These phone calls are generated from data files at the central office and not from the school your child is attending. There is a call home in the mornings between 10:35 and 11:00 a.m. to notify parents that their child has been marked absent in their second period class. This call is partially in response to concerns about children moving to and from their bus stops or walking to schools early in the morning. If you receive a call, you should call the school to verify your child's absence. If you are aware that your child is not in school due to illness, field trip, etc., you may disregard the call.

A second call will be made in the evening to notify parents that their child was absent for one or more periods. Killeen High School reports absences the day that they occur. However, other high schools might not call the same day. If you know your student was on a field trip, on a trip for athletics, home sick, or some other reason you are aware of, it is not necessary for you to contact the school. Extracurricular absences are usually cleared within 48 hours after the activity. Parents are not required to send a parent note to clear these absences.

If you receive a warning letter about absences which should have been cleared, please let us know and we will investigate. If you do not receive phone calls, it is possible the system has the wrong phone number and will correct it as soon as we know the correct number. It is vital you let the school know any time you change your home address, phone or cell.

The following attendance codes may appear on a student’s attendance report.

A = Excused                            P = Parent Note

U = Unexcused                        I = ISS/TOR

E = Extracurricular                  O = Suspended

M = Medical Note                    T = Truant

There may be times when unforeseen events occur which may prevent a student from attending school. This is particularly true due to the number of military dependents in our school district.  Absences which are the result of parents either being deployed or returning from a deployment are generally excused once we are notified.  Other events for which a student may be allowed excused absences include weddings, funerals, college graduation, military promotions or emergencies involving an immediate family member. Generally, students are granted three (3) days for these events and students are asked to provide wedding notices or a copy of an obituary rather than a parent's note. Absences which take the student out-of-state or out-of-country will be excused for up to (5) days.  Longer absences should be requested by letter through the principal’s office for approval. 

High School students are granted ten (10) days of excused absences to participate in extracurricular activities which have been approved in advance by the Principal.  Many students are involved in a number of extracurricular activities and, as a result, may exceed the ten days allowed by KISD Board Policy. Parents are advised to monitor the number of days their student misses, particularly if their child is involved in multi-sport activities.

Driver License Attendance Verification  

To obtain a driver's license, a student between the ages of 16 and 18 must annually provide to the Texas Department of Public Safety a form obtained from the school verifying that the student has met the 90 percent attendance requirement for the semester preceding the date of application.  The student can obtain this form at the Attendance office.  Please allow 24 hours after submitting your paperwork to the attendance office before picking up your form.  Parents cannot pick up VOE forms for students as students must sign the form.