Attendance at IBWHS

Dear IBW Parents/Guardians,

As we are now underway with 2nd quarter, I want to reiterate the importance of attendance and being on time to school as well as how to report absences for your student(s).

We know that when students miss school regularly, whether excused or unexcused, they lose critical instructional time, fall behind in their coursework and miss out on essential opportunities for academic and social growth. This, in turn, widens the opportunity gap—further limiting access to advanced coursework, extracurricular activities, and future career pathways. Attendance is a collective responsibility and involves a partnership between Ida B. Wells and Families. As we continue our goal of 90% attendance, we would like to remind you that students who plan to attend school dances (ex. Winter Formal 2/7) will be required to be at 90% or better.

At Ida B. Wells High School, we also believe that being on time is essential for academic success and a positive school culture. Tardiness disrupts the classroom, impacts academic performance, and creates negative habits that may persist into adulthood. To reinforce punctuality, we have implemented Tardy Intervention Program (TIP), a structured lunch detention for students who are repeatedly late to class. To support consistent and fair accountability, this program uses attendance data to track student punctuality and provide appropriate outcomes for repeated tardiness. See below for a full outline of our TIP program . You can also find this on our website here: Tardy Intervention Program (TIP)

Ida B. Wells is a large and successful community with many systems in constant motion. We appreciate your partnership as we work together to have our programs and procedures run smoothly. Please look over the procedures below for reporting absences.

I am grateful to live and work in this very special community. Thank you for all you do, every day, to support the students here at Ida B Wells High School.

If you have questions or concerns about your student's attendance, please reach out to Student Attendance Coach Juan Medina, jmedina@pps.net. If you have questions or concerns about reporting absences, please contact Kathy Lommen, klommen@pps.net in Attendance and you can always reach out to me at sburns@pps.net

Thank you,

Scott Burns,
Vice Principal, Ida B Wells High School

FOR FULL-DAY ABSENCES:
Report full-day absences that are either day of or future through ParentVUE

• Log into ParentVUE at parentvue.pps.net on a computer or use the ParentVUE app and click on Report Absence in the blue box. The all-day codes available are: appointment, family emergency, funeral, illness, mental health day or vacation.
• We do not get notified that a student's attendance has been updated in ParentVUE. Therefore, please do not leave messages in the Note field. We will not see it.
  
• If you have used ParentVUE to report attendance, you DO NOT then need to use the Absence Reporting Form.

FOR PARTIAL-DAY ABSENCES:

Report all partial-day absences through the IBW Absence Reporting Form

• Once you fill out this form, you DO NOT need to call or email with the same information.
• Submissions made before 3:30p will be updated the same day. Submissions made after 3:30p will be updated the next business day.

• You may use this form for past, current or future partial-day absences (as well as past full-day absences)

* All Absences need to be cleared within 3 school days of the absence per district policy.
Please note that the parent or guardian must excuse an absence or tardy even if the student is 18 years old.

* Please note, some days get busy and we may not get attendance updated prior to ABSENCE
NOTIFICATIONS going out. You do not need to call, email or fill out the form again. Attendance will

get updated.

We recommend giving as much notice as possible when you need to have your student leave school for an appointment or other reason. With advance notice, you can use the IBW Absence Reporting Form to let us know when you will need your student called out of class. One benefit of a pre-arranged pickup is not having to park in order to retrieve your student. You should be able to drive through and pick them up or wait in the 5 minute parking spots along the curb on Vermont.

Without advance notice, please call our Main Line at 503-916-5280. Please do not leave a message as it may not be heard in time. Instead, please call back until you reach someone.

Students need to stop by the Main Office and sign out before they leave the school and sign back in when they return.

1) If a student is arriving late to school and you will be excusing the tardy, students will need to sign into the office. Please use the IBW Absence Reporting Form if the late arrival is excused.

2) If your student signed out for an appointment but has returned to school, they should sign back in.

The athletic department notifies attendance of early release times for contests. Teams will be marked out en masse based on that release time. For example, if a team needs to be excused at 2:00pm for a contest, those students will have ATH in their attendance for the last period of the day. However, if they need to be excused at 2:30, there is no attendance to update since they should have been in class for 30 minutes prior to release. Parents do not need to notify attendance for an early release for student athletes.

Absence Notification through Parent Square goes out twice a day at 12:30 pm and 4:30pm based on the code in the system 5 minutes prior. They are sent on the day a student is marked absent. Calls go out at 4:30pm for unexcused absences from the entire day. (Please note that the first class after lunch can be tricky. Notifications go out shortly after the tardy bell rings and an attendance code can change during the class.) Absence notifications are turned on at the district level. We have no control over them at the school.

If you receive an absence notification:

1) Please use methods described in How To Report Absences above if the absence is excused and a parent/guardian forgot to excuse it. If the absence was reported close to the notification time, it may have just missed the cut off and will get updated.

2) If a parent/guardian receives a call but your student believes this is an error, please have your student contact their teacher for that reported absence to receive more information.

Absence notification update!

Unexcused absences generate notifications. The district has added 2 codes which also generate notifications in addition to A (unexcused absence). LAT stands for late after tardy and means a student has missed more than 25% of a class (on a regular A/B day, that is 23 minutes) and SKP stands for skipping. If you receive a notification, you can check PVUE to see which code was assigned.

What does it mean to be tardy (L)? Not present at the start of class and arriving prior to the completion of 25% of the class period.

What does it mean to be late after tardy (LAT)? LAT means a student missed more than 25% of a class. On A/B days that is more than 23 minutes late. On Flex days, it is more than 20 minutes late.

How It Works

• Attendance is tracked daily in Synergy.

• Students who accumulate four (4) or more tardies in a single week (across all periods) will be assigned TIP

• TIP is served during lunch in the cafeteria on Tuesday or Thursday.

• Students can choose which day they attend- either TUESDAY or THURSDAY.

• It is the students’ responsibility to check-in with the VP/designated staff in the Cafeteria to have their attendance recorded.

• If a student DOES NOT show up for one of the TIP sessions that week, an after-school detention will be assigned.

Student Expectations

• Report to the designated cafeteria area within 5 minutes of the start of lunch (by 11:50 AM (or 12:12 on a Flex day)).

• Check in with the VP/staff on duty.

• Bring your lunch! If you are getting a school lunch, you must check in before getting on the lunch line.

• No phones, electronics.

Why being on time matters

• Improved learning

• Higher academic performance

• Builds time management skills

• Reduces disruptions to the classroom community

• Establishes good habits for future academic and career success

Please call our Main Office at 503-916-5280
Attendance Procedures found on Website https://www.pps.net/Domain/6916