You snooze, you win: Students must be stopped from abusing the attendance policy for academic gain

It’s 2 a.m. the night before that AP Bio test and you are starting to nod off, but there’s still have a few more hours of studying to be done. The thought of sleep is tempting, especially since the test is not until third period. You think, “Maybe if I skipped first and second period I could still get an A…”

It has become a growing trend for students with tests later in the day to skip the preceding periods to gain the unfair advantage of additional sleep or studying.

The school already has policies in place that ban athletes from playing games if they do not attend the full day of school, and it is against school rules to participate in any production, including those for theater or band, if a student misses more than half of a school day. The school should do the same for students who skip the beginning of school to study for tests.

Most students expect to stay up late before a major exam for last-minute cramming and studying. This lack of sleep on nights leading up to tests obviously affects test performance. Students who skip earlier periods to sleep in have a better chance of scoring higher than someone who studied the same amount but did not sleep as long.

Students also use those earlier periods as even more studying time, giving them even more of an unfair advantage.

Although not as overt as looking at another students paper or smuggling notes into tests, skipping other classes to gain extra study time does give students an unfair advantage and teachers and administrators should take appropriate action to prevent it.

Teachers should enforce a policy that students must be present in their previous classes in order to take an exam in later ones. The act of skipping other periods, even for academic benefit, is against the attendance policy.

Students are only excused from school for illnesses, medical or dental appointments and emergencies. However, students will often lie, saying that they have a doctor’s appointment in order to obtain an excused absence after their early-morning, last-minute studying session.
Since the school is not able to determine whether the student’s excuse is truly legitimate, it would be unfair to the students with legitimate excused absences to not be allow test make-ups.

Therefore, the school should employ stricter policies for excused absences such as doctor’s appointments and illnesses in order to ensure truthfulness. Students should be required to give a doctor’s note to verify that they have actually been to the doctor’s office.

Parents also play a large role in this issue. They are just as accountable for upholding academic integrity as their children are, and when they are dishonestly excusing their child’s absence they must realize that they are indirectly encouraging their children to cheat. Before falsely calling in a student as sick, parents need to consider whether what they are doing is the proper course of conduct not only for other students, but for their own child.

With parents, teachers, and administrators working together, fewer students will miraculously recover from morning sickness before taking tests later in the day.