Whitney Young’s New Attendance Policy

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Skylar Mooyoung, Writer

As many of you may know, Whitney Young recently implemented a new attendance policy restricting the number of days students can miss and defining what qualifies as an unexcused or excused absence.

This policy especially affects seniors. According to the new policy, Whitney Young seniors must have a 95% attendance rate or higher in order to participate in many senior activities. These activities include but are not limited to, senior prom, the graduation ceremony and senior spring luncheon. Many members of the senior class have strong feelings and issues with the new policy. Senior, Nyla David ‘19 says, “I think it is very inconsiderate of our time.” Another senior, Kayla Bilal ‘19 gave her opinion stating, “The policy is unnecessary and the consequences are entirely too extreme.”

This is the way many people throughout the school feel. Senior year is supposed to be the most fun year and many of the fun opportunities are at stake depending on one’s attendance. One student, Alicia Bridges ’19, made a strong point saying, “The new attendance policy is a subjective topic being approached subjectively. It forces more unnecessary stress on to students and does not necessarily change their approach towards school.” At this point in the year, seniors are dealing with a lot of different stressors and their attendance should not be one of them. From college applications, scholarships and deadlines to school and extracurriculars, seniors are faced with lots of additional stress. One of the ways to combat this would be to take mental health days.

Mental health is very important and is not being acknowledged in situations like these. Students can easily become overwhelmed and stressed due to the amount of things they have to get accomplished and this can lead to depression, anxiety and numerous other mental illnesses. Mental health days are important for students to take because sometimes they simply need a break and to focus on themselves for once. The new attendance policy should be updated to accommodate the overall health and well being of the Whitney Young student body.