A special board committee that is studying new policy options to improve student attendance in the Warren County R-III School District reported at the November meeting that it is still working through recommendations for a single policy to strongly motivate kids not to miss classes and whole days unless they must because of illness or other serious circumstances. Board member Scott Costello, who is leading the board’s attendance policy effort directed at high school students, said that the committee has been actively reviewing different policy models from other districts, but so far has been unable to find a single policy to suit all situations for the district. Costello said he and other committee members — including administrators — hope to present recommendations at the board’s December meeting. “We have been looking at a lot of different ideas,” Costello told the board. “Ultimately, we need to have a set of rules that are fair and can be enforced. He emphasized that although the committee had hoped to have firm recommendations in November, members did not want to present anything that may not be workable. “Right now, we are leaning toward a policy that would in some form tie grades earned to attendance, Costello said. “In a perfect world, we would be ready to launch the policy at the beginning of second semester of this school year, but the more likely scenario will be a “soft” implementation during second semester to allow us to see how it goes and make adjustments as necessary.” Putting in place a new tougher attendance policy has been discussed numerous times, and last summer the school board voted in a policy that called for students who miss more than nine class periods in a particular course to risk not receiving credit for the class. After nine class absences, which may include tardiness, the policy stated that student and parents must meet with an attendance committee at a hearing to review the circumstances and to decide outcomes for the absences, including possible loss of credit. That policy recommendation ended up being scratched when administrators later said that as they examined the realities of the new rules, it became apparent the policy would be difficult to implement as written. “When we looked at how many students would be in this (credit-loss) situation using last year’s attendance records, we found that 294 kids would have been required to attend individual hearings to discuss loss of credit,” said Warrenton High School Principal Jeremy Way. “Taking teachers and department head personnel out for that amount of meetings would be unmanageable. Also, if we say you’re going to lose the credit, we need to think about what the student’s motivation would be to keep coming to class after he or she hits that credit-loss mark.”