Grace for athletes

The light outside has long faded. As the bus pulls back onto campus from an away athletic game, the single thought on your mind is to collapse onto your bed. You finally manage to drag your exhausted body to your dorm only to have the dark hallway suddenly illuminated by the flash of your cellphone screen as you get a notification that you have been marked absent from the last two classes of the day. Accompanying the email is a notation declaring that you have accumulated six absences in the classes, adding yet another issue to your overflowing to-do list. That is the life of a student athlete. 

This is not a fantasy, but a reality that I lived through last year along with so many other students. The current attendance policy is set up in a way that does not take into account the schedule demands of students, nor does it account for or appreciate the massive amount of time given up by our students to represent our school, not just in athletics but in theater, Model UN, and other platforms. The policy, with its threat of loss of credit, punishes students for fulfilling their team and community responsibilities. Games and other performances are considered required appointments, leaving the involved students with an absence. 

Not only does the current policy leave students with no positive outcomes when torn between responsibilities, it also does not distinguish between absences due to carelessness such as oversleeping and absences due to school-sponsored events. As a result, a student who repeatedly skips class and a student who repeatedly misses class to represent Mercersburg athletics accumulate seemingly equal absences, creating an inaccurate picture of their respective commitments to academics. The policy also counts absences for commitments such as medical appointments and field trips, which are often outside a student’s control. 

These issues raise a simple question: how should the policy be changed? To this I answer that if, for a school-sponsored event, a student has notified the teacher in advance and completed or arranged to complete the work missed, they should receive an excused absence that does not count toward a loss of credit in the class. This distinction would create a record that more accurately reflects a student’s attendance while also reducing the anxiety and stress of students who participate in varsity sports or other off-campus PGA commitments. While some may argue that an absence from a class no matter the reason still has the same effect, this is not so. A student who has completed all the work for the class and is diligent in their participation even outside the classroom will have a much greater positive impact on the culture and learning of the class in comparison to someone who has chosen to cut the class. The Attendance Policy should show the difference. Students should not be punished for choosing between two responsibilities the school itself asks them to fulfill. When caught between a rock and a hard place, how are you supposed to come out without a scratch?