Mira Costa’s attendance policy, detailed on the school’s website, is intended to increase attendance and decrease truancies. Understandably, this policy is also in place to ensure funding for Costa: the higher the attendance rates, the more funding the district receives from the state. However, even if the push for attendance is based on concern for students’ education, it discriminates against those without easy access to healthcare.
Residents of Manhattan Beach and Hermosa Beach are given the choice to attend Mira Costa or Redondo Union High School, but students from all over the South Bay attend Manhattan Beach Unified School District schools via permit. As of 2014, 17% of residents in the South Bay were uninsured. If this statistic is applied to Costa’s population of only about 2,700, theoretically around 500 students at Costa do not have easy access to doctors’ appointments, medication or treatment.
Costa’s guidelines for excused absences discriminates against this population of students by requiring a doctor’s note after five or more consecutive sick days. A sickness as simple and common as the flu could take someone out of school for a week, already totaling five days. After 14 absences throughout the entire school year, doctors’ notes are required for any single absence. Although 14 days may seem adequate, in reality it adds up to only 8% of the school year, which can be detrimental and unreasonable for students with weaker immune systems, or who struggle with infections or chronic illnesses. It is important that the district takes all of its students into account, when deciding policies that will affect each student.
For those without insurance, a simple trip to the doctor’s office to obtain a note could cost upwards of $200. It is unreasonable for the administration to ask parents without insurance to take their child to get a doctor’s note when a parent’s signature is enough for any other type of absence.
Families who find themselves in this position face two possible solutions: to spend extra money on a trip to the doctor or send their kid to school sick. Students who are forced to come to school while sick have a hindered learning experience and put the rest of the student population in danger of catching a virus. Schools are already breeding grounds for germs without the school indirectly encouraging attendance from contagious students.
These strict rules, while unfair, have not been questioned because they benefit Mira Costa’s funding. Encouraging kids to come to school as much as possible helps the administration pull in more revenue. It is more beneficial to have students come to school, despite it being a health risk or not in the best interest of the student. This conduct should be re-evaluated as the values of the district should always center around student sustainability.
According to Costa’s policy, a student must bring a handwritten note to the Attendance Office, signed by a parent/guardian. Unless the absence is cleared upon a student’s return, it will be marked truant.
The ignorance of around 17% of our population is reason enough for the attendance policy to be reevaluated, but it can be argued that there is a larger issue with the system’s motivation to keep kids in school. For every student absent each day, Mira Costa loses about $28 of funding. According to an article in The Beach Reporter one year ago, Manhattan Beach Unified School District asks parents to make a $47 donation each time a student misses a day of school.
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