Attendance
All Kindergarten – 6th Grade Students
Start School Everyday at 8:00 AM
Absences
Regular school attendance is important. A student who is frequently absent will miss instruction, which cannot be made up even though written work may be completed. For attendance accounting purposes, the only legally excused absences are illness, visits to the doctor or dentist, and bereavement. All other absences including parent requests are unexcused. The Westminster School District is part of the Orange County Truancy Project. Students having more than three unexcused absences or excessive excused absences may be subject to a School Attendance Review Board (SARB) hearing.
If your child must be absent, please notify the school as soon as possible. Please be prepared to give us the name of your child and his/her teacher, reason for the absence, and the anticipated length of absence. If you do not call, you must send a written, signed excuse with your child the day he/she returns to school. State the reason and the date of the absence. Absences not verified within a week become unexcused absences.
Tardiness
Tardiness not only interrupts the instructional program but cultivates detrimental behavior that is difficult to reverse once a child reaches middle school. A student who arrives after the 8:00 bell must come to the office to sign in and receive a late slip for entering the classroom. Please be sure that your child leaves home in time to arrive at school before the bell rings. Parents will be notified of excessive tardiness.
Many parents state that their child’s tardy is due to the parents’ scheduling errors or traffic. Please be aware that “on time” behavior is definitely learned; help your child be on time so that he/she can develop good habits at a young age. There are no excused tardies. However, if your child has a doctor’s or dentist’s verification of appointment your child will not be marked as tardy.