Regular attendance and promptness are essential to good performance in school. Absence from school is often the greatest single cause of poor performance and achievement. Since the learning process is a progressive activity, each day’s lesson is built upon those class activities that took place on previous days. Whenever a student misses class, for whatever reasons, that experience can never be completely made-up. Reading the material and performing satisfactorily on tests does not compensate for the loss of insight gained during class discussion or the loss of competency acquired through explanation or supervised drill. Since responsibility is a learned behavior and regular school attendance patterns encourage the development of responsible patterns of behavior, each student attending Valparaiso High School is expected to make every effort possible to be in school everyday. The Valparaiso High School Attendance Policy is developed with the idea that if a student is not present in school he/she is not learning. Valparaiso High School attendance regulations are expressed to encourage attendance and to encourage an “on the job” attitude for students to follow and to maintain throughout life.

Valparaiso High School understands, however, that sometimes it becomes necessary for a student to be absent. Therefore, the next few pages have been devoted to providing the student and parent with guidelines as to our attendance procedures and policies.