Are AISG’S Late Work & Absence Policies Too Nice?

There’s a saying that two things that are certain in life: taxes and death. Well, for us students, we can add tests to that list of inevitable things. I wrote about AISG’s grading system before, but now I want to write about our makeup and late work policies, in response to popular demand.

If you happen to be a perfect student who has never been absent and had to make up a test OR handed in an assignment late, here’s some clarification: makeup refers to taking a summative assessment at another time, normally later than everyone else, due to absence. Late work refers to assignments that students submit for credit after the official deadline for submission has passed.

Here are the official school guidelines on those topics from the school website (page numbers refer to the pages in the SY18-19 HS Handbook).

Makeups / late work:

1. For excused absences: Upon the student’s return to school, assignments may be submitted, and assessments made up within the same number of days as the absence. Grades will not be affected. (Page 45)
2. Unexcused absence: Upon the student’s return to school, assignments will be submitted, and assessments made up immediately. (Page 45)

The handbook also says that there may be a penalty as listed under the section on Assessment Practices (page 20).

Late or incomplete work is handled as follows:

• If a final deadline is not met, the student is required to complete the work under supervision at a time/place to be determined by the teacher;
• No achievement grade penalty will be applied, however, a penalty to the ATL portion of the grade may result.
• IF the work is still not completed following this extended deadline, the work is identified as “INC” (incomplete) in the grade book. Zeros are not used.

Absence impacts to assessments and reporting are handled as follows:

• Students’ achievement grades are not penalized for absences. Unexcused absences as a result of skipping class are a behavioral issue that will be dealt with separately.
• Except in the case where an unexcused absence is determined to be an act of academic dishonesty, absent students are given make- up opportunities for all missed summative assessments without penalty. Students should make up work within two school days of returning to school unless other arrangements are made due to a long-term absence. (Page 21)

There’s also a note on skipping class:

Skipping a class when an assessment is due is considered an incidence of academic dishonesty; behavioral consequences and work missed will be handled as outlined in the Academic Effort and Honesty Section below. (Page 45)

The academic honesty section states:

• An alternative assessment may be given, with the maximum grade of 70%.
• All instances will be reported to the assistant principal (Mr.Tragert), and repeated violations may lead to expulsion. (Page 34)

Sounds harsh, doesn’t it? However, if you read carefully, you will realize that this policy is actually very lenient to the point where students basically face no consequences whatsoever.

      To summarize:

1. You won’t be penalized for handing in projects or work late, even if it’s unexcused. You also don’t receive a penalty for getting to take a test later than everyone else due to absence.
2. If you fail to hand in a project, even after the extension, you won’t be given a 0, but an INCOMPLETE instead.

Of course, the penalty to your ATL marks can be considered a punishment. But in reality, who cares? ATLs are insignificant, especially for IB students, since ATLs aren’t reflected on your transcript. A punishment to the ATL is negligible compared to an actual grade penalty. If you fail to hand in a project, the assignment counts as incomplete. INC marks aren’t calculated when determining the GPA, and AISG makes it clear that “Zeros are not used” (Page 21). Only if missing several deadlines will a student be required to finish their work under supervision. By then, the student will have weeks more than his/her classmates to finish the work. This is simply unfair for everyone who worked hard to hand it in on time.

Of course, as students, we are very involved in all kinds of activities, and we often have to take make-up tests due to not being physically present. This is why the “no penalty” rule for excused absences makes sense. However, it should be expected that the student tries to make these missed assessments up as soon as they return. I personally had one month with one school-related trip per week, and missed 4 out of 5 math classes for that unit, yet by the time I came back, I still took the test and finished all my makeup assessments during the following week. Senior Carrie L. agrees with me, saying that she once had a Habitat build, MUN trip, and APAC Dance competition all in two weeks, but she still pulled through the 11 summative assessments she had to complete during her first week back.

On the other hand, we have all heard about students using absences to get an academic edge. By not taking the test at the same time as everyone else, those students abuse this leniency to have more time to prepare for a test, and use more time to finish their projects, or even get additional information about what is on the test from students that took it on time. These scenarios are not uncommon at all. Carrie L. says, “I know a student that deliberately [did] not show up for a major summative presentation and was able to delay it for weeks, eventually to the next semester. This is an extreme case where a student cheat[ed] the system and unfairly gained an entire winter break to prepare for it, when everyone else had a few days.” Senior Tony H. also agrees, saying he knows people who openly confess, or even brag about how they “utilize sick days dishonestly to purposely miss a test to get extra time to study,” and “ask their classmate[s] about what’s on the test because a lot of teachers don’t actually make new tests.” Senior Regina K. says, “people knowingly miss school when they have a test at that day or skip the block with the test. Or sometimes, they go to the nurse right before the block even though they are perfectly fine in earlier periods. They avoid the test that they don’t feel prepared for in many ways.” This doesn’t only happen in one grade. Junior Lisa M. commented that she also knew people who skip review week to study at home. Junior Arete S. recalls that “during a week where there’s a lot of tests, some people will skip some of the days to further prepare for a test, or skip the day before a major test that needs a lot of preparation.”

An issue I found with this is that although the handbook states, “Skipping a class when an assessment is due is considered an incidence of academic dishonesty,” there is no punishment if a student skips the day before the test to study for it at home, or a day before the deadline of a major project to get more time, since it’s not the day the assessment is due. At the same time, while we all hear of people being held accountable for other forms of academic dishonesty, we seldom hear about people getting in trouble for skipping class to avoid examinations. I’m not saying there are none, but they are definitely less frequent. In part, this may have to do with parents who are complicit in their children’s strategic skipping. If a parent agrees to lie to the school and claim that their son or daughter is ill when in reality they are studying, the school has no means of holding the student accountable.

Many students are enraged when they witness students getting an unfair edge. Tony comments, “It’s really unfair. The sad thing is that they always get away with it.” Amanda D. says, “I find it unfair and annoying how they [students who skip] aren’t penalized for it.” Regina says, “It is rude to other students. It is academic dishonesty. Even if some teachers claim that students don’t get an advantage, I think that’s not true. If they have more time, they can review more content, and I’ve seen students getting much higher grades than normal due to such manipulation.”

What I find concerning is that not all teachers make a new exam for students that need to do a make-up exam. This is understandable, as exams take a long time to make. Mr. Seiple told our class that he spent at least 30 hours making our chemistry mock exam, and Ms. Francis also commented on the math exam taking a long time to make. Some teachers’ schedules simply wouldn’t allow the making of another test just for a handful of students. Even if they do, each unit’s knowledge point is stated in the IB syllabus, and the content is still going to be the same, even if the questions aren’t identical. Students will always be better off if they have more time to review the content, and even more so if they have information regarding the assessment from their friends. If the teacher uses a past paper and switches up the year for the make-up test, the students can then argue that they are being unfairly treated, as different years’ papers vary in difficulty. In conclusion, there is no way to guarantee a fair make-up, but having this system be so easily abused by ill-intended students is unfair for the honest majority.

Teachers have mixed opinions about penalizing late work and abuse of make-ups. Ms. Erica is proud to say that her students always hand in missing assessments the day they come back, and make-up essays will receive different prompts. For other subjects, it’s more complicated. “I understand the philosophical need to separate a student’s behavior from their academic grade. However, I believe the policy of not penalizing students for late work is dangerous, because it teaches them that procrastination and gaming the system is a productive way to approach tasks, both academic and professional,” says Ms. Barga. She also adds, “I think it would be fine if there were another system such as ATLs being submitted on college transcripts so that students actually cared about them. However, in the absence of a system where students care about ATLs, it creates chaos if students feel that their efforts to do their work on time and to manage time wisely go unrewarded because their peers gamed the system.” As to people using excuses to skip class and review for exams or skipping assessments altogether, Ms. Barga reveals that the teachers aren’t unaware of such dishonesty. “I’ve had a student who was having emotional issues during my class, and then it turns out the student really aced the science exam the block after that. It happens all the time — it’s like a weekly event. The teachers are aware of it. We may judge [the perpetrators] in our minds, but not in their grades. We don’t get to reflect that in any significant way.” Ms. Erica also agrees, adding that this behavior is further encouraged by parents acting as accomplices to the students.

However, an argument many teachers do somewhat agree with is that students shouldn’t be penalized for poor time management: as the handbook states, the assessments should be directly related to “the relevant curriculum standards” (Page 20). Therefore, as Ms. Barga also points out, it is unfair for a student who masters the requirements but receives a poor grade due to not being able to hand things in on time: “That’s not an accurate reflection of the student’s knowledge and understanding.”

I understand that argument. However, in my recent math video project, there was a criterion in the rubric for the work being “handed in on time.” I’ve come across some individual assignments that carry penalties for late submission, and I think that AISG should make a school-wide, all-subject rule. Training students to be responsible learners and wise time managers is just as important, if not more, than knowing the content of the curriculum. I think it’s safe to say (I’m sorry Mr. Seiple) that not knowing how to calculate the index of hydrogen deficiency is will have less harm to your future pursuits than not being able to get anything done on time. AISG aims to prepare students to be successful in daily life and in our pursuit of a higher educational degree — and wise time management and the ability to deliver a product as required are essential in both. Freshman Isadora B. agrees, saying, “If the reason for the late handing in is invalid and the student hadn’t emailed the teacher regarding whatever issue there is before, then yes, I believe there should be a grade punishment.”

The issue of skipping class to gain an edge on an assessment is even more complicated. How do you prove that a student is skipping class to avoid an assessment, anyway? That is nearly impossible to prove. If someone says they have a bad headache and needs to go to the nurse, how can you verify that statement? If someone skips school due to not feeling well, then comes the next day saying they now feel fine, how do you know if they skipped on purpose or not? We can’t possibly penalize everyone who missed school on a day of assessment, especially with the large number of summative projects and assessments IB students have. Who can decide if they truly skipped with the intent of committing academic dishonesty or not? Regina K. comments that “everyone who gets accused of such a practice gets very defensive and will always find a way to justify it.”

How do we address this issue? I believe that it should become a common practice to prepare different tests as long as someone is taking it on a separate day than scheduled, as well as actually enforcing the rule that requires students to take the make-up test as soon as they come back from school. Regina K. suggests that “people who take a test five days after everyone else should not be able to achieve the same amount of grades,” and I agree with that. The same should go for projects or other outside-of-class work. Someone who hands something in weeks after everyone else (common for IAs, especially) should be penalized, or else why would anyone hand anything in on time? I may as well take my sweet time crafting a perfect essay, instead of staying up until midnight trying to finish it before the deadline. Junior Alison L. says that she believes there should be a corresponding point deduction based on how many days late the work is, and that teachers let students get away with turning in late work too easily, so the students take advantage of that.

As for skipping school, senior Amanda D. thinks, “The school should ask for proof of absence such as a doctor’s note” to prove that the absence is rational and excusable. I agree with these suggestions. A student went even further in saying, “School should encourage a prize for anyone who reports on people deliberately skipping or pretend to be sick.” No matter what extreme ideas the students have, what is mutual is that everyone agrees this is a problem. Sophia L. observes, “A ton of people do this.” Students and teachers alike know that this practice is common and unfair. I’m convinced that I speak for all students, teachers and parents in my conviction that something needs to be done to address this issue.

Comments? Ideas? Share them below.