Page 38 - Staff Handbook- Bethune Elementary 2018-2019_Neat

Student attendance is very important to your child’s academic success, so please make sure
your child is at school and is on time each and every day!

Student: Student attendance must be recorded daily via PowerSchool by each homeroom teacher
no later than 8:30 am. Attendance should also be recorded on the student’s permanent record at
year’s end. Questions concerning attendance should be directed to the attendance clerk. Student
absences exceeding ten (10) days will be excused only by written documentation from a
licensed/certified health practitioner, by the principal for emergency reasons, or for recognized
religious holidays. Students are required to bring all excuses for absences to the homeroom teacher.
The homeroom teacher will send all absence notes to the attendance clerk with his/her attendance.
Teacher’s name and grade level need to be written on each note.

Only the teacher should take attendance. In addition, teachers are responsible for keeping their
own record of attendance; the teacher’s record is the documentation used to determine denial
of credit. A teacher should call home to verify absences when a child has missed 3 consecutive days.
The teacher should then email the attendance clerk along with any information documenting the
child’s reason for absences.

JE/JEB
The Code of Laws of South Carolina, Section 59-65-10 as amended reads: “All parents or guardians
shall cause their children or wards to attend regularly a public or private school or kindergarten of this
State. . .from the school year in which the child or ward is five years of age before September 1st until
the child or ward attains his seventeenth birthday or graduates from high school.”

Section 59-65-20 reads in part: “Any parent or guardian who neglects to enroll his child or ward or
refuses to make such child or ward attend school shall, upon conviction, be fined not more than fifty
dollars or be imprisoned not more than thirty days; each day’s absence shall constitute a separate
offense.”

SC State School Board Regulation R43-274 (D.) reads in part: “Should the parent(s) or guardian(s)
refuse to cooperate with the intervention planning to remedy the attendance problem, the school
district has the authority to refer the student to Family Court in accordance with S.C. Code Ann.. S
59-65-50 (1990), and a report shall be filed against the parent (s) or guardian(s) with the Department
of Social Services in compliance with S.C. Code Ann. S 29-7-490 (2) © (supp. 2002).”

Students who need to be dismissed early from school will be required to submit a written parent
request by 9:00 am with teacher’s attendance to the attendance clerk in the front office. Students are
required to have a parent, guardian, or an authorized person present to check them out in the main
office. Parents will sign out students using our computerized system to track tardies and early
dismissals.