[ Image description: A screenshot of an online news article titled “New Absentee Rule To Start In Nova Scotia Schools October 1st.” / end of description ]

So Nova Scotia is getting a new policy where grade 10-12 students who miss more than 20% of their classes automatically fail the course, no matter how much work they have completed or what their marks are. Which is completely ableist and ridiculous.

I know multiple people, with high school diplomas, who would not have those diplomas had this rule been in place while they were still in school.

Policies like this specifically hurt students with mental illness, disabilities, chronic illness, and family problems. It’s also more likely to harm lower income students. 

Things like missing a class due to playing on a school sports team, or going on a field trip will not count as these absences, but illness, or the death of a family member will.

If the point of school is to teach students and give them knowledge, then the amount of time missed should hold no bearing on their ability to pass the class. If a student misses a large amount of time, and still manages to complete their work and get good marks in the class, then obviously they care about the class and are more than willing to put in the work considering they’re passing with less help and less access to the material than students who are in class every day. If they don’t show up for school and they don’t do their work, then they will fail regardless of pointless attendance policies like this one.

In addition to failing a course if they miss more than 20% of the classes, students will no longer be able to ask teachers to provide them with missed assignments readings, and will instead need to ask their principal to request it. Which again, does not make it any easier for the student to catch up, it actually creates more obstacles. 

None of these policies will actually help students who are most in need of help. They just punish students who may be missing school due to their health and probably already feel bad about it. Because again, students who simply don’t care would not be too likely to be putting in the effort to complete assignments and get passing grades in classes they’re not attending. What would actually be helpful would be to put policies in place that benefit students who miss large chunks of class time, by making it easier to obtain missed work and giving them resources to find the material that was taught in class. That way, if a student is sick, or can’t make it into school, they have a higher possibility of actually learning what they missed, which I was under the impression was the purpose of school.