Cambridge’s inconsistent attendance policies might encourage students to come to school sick out of a fear of losing credit, teens told School Committee members last month.
The members talked about the inconsistencies between district and high school policies in an Oct. 20 policy order by members Arjun Jaikumar, Luisa de Paula Santos and vice chair Caitlin Dube. The superintendent is still expected to report back on policy discrepancies.
For the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, policies laid out in a student handbook say parent-reported absences might lead to no credit for a class, whereas documented medical appointments would be accepted as reason to excuse absences without risking credit. Districtwide, a physician’s statement is needed only in more extreme circumstances.
Five students spoke to the issue during public comment.
“CRLS attendance policy, in its current form, pushes kids to come into school sick. The district needs to make it absolutely clear by passing this motion that students are not expected and will not be punished for getting sick. Because, make no mistake, this is a public health hazard. Students are pushing themselves into school sick, endangering themselves and spreading that sickness, endangering others,” said Anurag Bhargava, a CRLS senior.
Lio Caravan, a junior who has chronic illnesses, said, “I don’t feel safe coming to school when I’m far more likely to get sick, potentially disabling me more or causing me to flare up. The more people who come to school sick, the more people who get sick – which simply increases the risk of someone getting sick and being out longer. When healthy kids are at school, we can learn easier and we feel better.” Caravan said that more students planned to speak that night, but could not due to a technical difficulty.
The order speaks to why there might be disparities: Financial and physical barriers to health care for some families, for instance, and situations in which a student has a chronic condition that keeps a student home but doesn’t warrant a doctor visit. People with a “particularly communicable or infectious disease” are often discouraged from seeing doctors, the members noted.
Member Elizabeth Hudson objected. “There is a purpose to this policy. It was deliberately reverted last year because we had wild absenteeism rates. We change it and you get a 10-point drop in the following year,” Hudson said. “Those aren’t all kids who were sick and staying at home and doing their work at home, who all of a sudden felt forced to come to school.”
Policy changes and other efforts have decreased chronic absenteeism by 12 percentage points in the past school year, superintendent David Murphy said in a memorandum to the School Committee.
Level of judgment
If the district followed the members’ order to allow excused “personal illness or quarantine” based on notice from family instead of medical professionals, “it could significantly derail the efforts we have undertaken and ultimately diminish the committee’s work to deepen student engagement and improve attendance,” Murphy’s memo says.
Murphy added that, despite what the handbook says, “it is not true that for an illness absence to be excused, you must have a doctor’s note.”
“It’s not necessarily about the medical documentation or a note from a caregiver. There has to be a level of judgment that is exercised that contemplates the individual circumstances under which a student is unable to go to school, and I am very confident that with a clearly articulated standard, we can exercise that judgment to get to a place where there’s clarity with respect to the policy and fairness with respect to the policy,” Murphy said.
The contradiction between district policy and school handbook needs to be addressed, Jaikumar said.
The superintendent was asked to report back on if students need to provide documentation for illness, and on attendance violation thresholds and tardies.
Gap persists in test results
Also last month, the school district revealed that it outperformed the state average on the math and science portion of the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System standardized test, returning to some prepandemic scores. Similarly to English-language arts and civics data, there is an achievement gap across racial groups that continues to concern committee members.
Heather Francis, the district’s chief academic officer, and Jen Amigone, director of data, assessment and accountability, joined the committee to present the data.
Every grade scored 12 percentage points or higher above the state in the math portion, and overall scores have surpassed 2019 levels. Scores of Black and low-income students remain significantly lower, below prepandemic levels, though.
Similarly to the ELA scores, there was a 53 percentage point difference between the percentages of some students in meeting or exceeding expectations. As reviewed Oct. 20, data showed 74 percent of Asian students meeting or exceeding expectations, compared with 24 percent of Black or African American students.
Additionally, there was a 51 percentage point difference between the percentages of low income and non-low income students meeting or exceeding expectations.
“We have a history of achievement and opportunity gaps, and we have a responsibility to narrow and eliminate those gaps,” Murphy said. All groups except Black and-low income students are increasing growth in scores, the data said. “The clear question here is whether or not our Black students are being treated profoundly differently. I don’t see any other way around that question … We know that we have students that are not being treated the way they need to be treated in terms of how well supported they are. What do we do about it? I think that’s the question that we’re struggling with.”
Yet the presentation highlighted that Fletcher Maynard Academy, the school with the highest percentage of high-needs students and Black students, scored in the 91st percentile in Grade 5 science. Amigone and Francis attributed that win to new dedicated lab time for science, technology, engineering and math time.
Members Hudson and Richard Harding commented on the overall percentage of students meeting or exceeding expectations, which falls around 60 percent for the math portion.
“When we’re looking at these scores, one of the things that always galls me is that we can sit here and say that we’re doing better, and not zoom out and say it’s patently unacceptable and totally ridiculous that 40 percent of our kids aren’t meeting state expectations,” Hudson said.
Harding added: “If you had 40 percent of your pilots that weren’t able to meet the basic level, none of us would get on the plane. None of us would use that airline. We just wouldn’t take that chance, right? It’s a similar situation here. You’d be meeting with everybody in your power to make sure we figure that out.”
