On February 13th at 3:56 PM, La Jolla High’s Administrative Team issued an email detailing a new attendance policy and loss of privileges that would take effect on the 18th. In this new policy, students with six unexcused tardies, 12 unexcused period absences, or two days of unexcused absences will be placed on the Loss of Privileges (LOP) list and will be unable to attend school-sponsored events such as prom. Students on the LOP list will be assigned a certain amount of lunch detentions, after-school tutoring, or Saturday school to get off. Schools make money off student attendance, with the school losing $400,000 from poor attendance last year, so this decision was made partially due to San Diego Unified’s large budget deficit, however, Principal Chuck Podhorsky said. “The bigger issue is we know that, and there’s a ton of research around it, is the more students miss school you start to come to a point where you missed more than 10% of the school year, which is not a ton, you can start to predict a student’s success.” Senior Abel Delgadillo, a senior, thinks this new policy gives teachers too much power, saying. “You can’t be tardy at all, and there are some teachers that just mark you tardy. So I think they have too much power and could just really mess with your privileges to go to prom.”
Most students can manage to avoid being placed on the LOP list however, the ones can’t are not thrilled by the prospect of lunch detention, despite the good intentions behind the policy.