Planning on attending homecoming came with a new wrinkle this year.
While the rules were almost identical as last year, the key difference was number of unexcused absences.
Last year, homecoming was held later in the quarter, while this year its sooner on September 20. Which means less unexcused absences were allowed.
“I don’t think that two days of unexcused absences is very fair because sometimes things that are excused are counted as unexcused due to poor communication, and I don’t think that students should be punished like this,” Cory McCune said.
The rules for this year’s homecoming was a max of two days of unexcused absences on or before September 19. Since the days allowed to have unexcused absent days are different this year, many students are not allowed to go, and that has caused some students to be upset with this new procedure, while others do not seem to mind.
“I think its fine,” Jonae Davis (12) said. the last few years I’m pretty sure it was like three unexcused absences or something, but it makes sense and I’m glad this year that their doing a lot more to prevent kids who have bad attendance or bad grades from going. Last year there were a lot of issues with kids going to all these fun events, going on field trips, when they’re literally failing all of their classes and have missed months and months of school, but they’ll only come for the fun events.”
Despite any restrictions enforced, there were roughly 530 students at this year’s dance according to Cierra Mitchell.
Just like last year’s rules, any student with an out-of-school suspension between August 18th through September 19th will not be able to buy a ticket nor attend the dance at all.
“I don’t like them personally, only because I feel like if your parent calls you out, its unexcused because that’s your parent physically coming into the school and checking you out, so it should not be unexcused because your parent is right there. Also, say a family emergency happens and you can’t get a note to get that removed,” Tanya Lopez said.
These rules not only apply for Burke students, but also any student wanting to attend the dance from other schools.
“The single most important factors contributing to student achievement is school attendance and behavior. Burke High strongly believes that daily attendance and positive behavior is critical to academic success and social and emotional well-being. Students are expected to be in school regularly, on time and remain present the entire day,” Darren Rasmussen said in an email sent to both parents and staff members.
