it was decided that it should be implemented by the Rose administration,” Dudley said. “It hasn’t happened in a while because attendance hasn’t heavily affected students since before COVID-19, but now we have gotten back to where you can really only have 10 absences.” 

     English teacher Alessandra Nysether-Santos and social studies teacher Diane Padilla serve as supervisors at these make-up sessions. They alternate their duties by selecting days that they are available.

     “Last semester was the first time that I started handling the make-up hours,” Nysether-Santos said. “Ms. Padilla has been helping me through this process and in doing that, we both [have] been splitting the days up.”

     Being present is necessary for a student to pass a class, and these after-school sessions serve as an alternative to summer school for students. Students utilizing this opportunity will make up for one unexcused absence for each session that they attend.

     “There is a certain amount of hours that a student has to be in class in order to get that credit, because the state deems that a student needs to be sitting in class this many hours to actually earn credit for it,” Dudley said. “So when you’ve missed more than 10 days and they are unexcused absences, you are not there and… you are not getting the information or the material.”

     Rose’s Academic Counseling and Educational Support (ACES) teachers, Keith Gould and Monica Lassiter, give students that have more than 10 unexcused absences contracts that explain what they need to do to get their credit back.

     “Starting back this semester, if you have more than 10 unexcused absences, but you have a passing grade in a class, you can get a contract that says if you pass all your classes and do not miss too many days and you don’t get into any trouble, [then] you can get your credit back,” Dudley said. “So it’s a contract saying if you do this, we’ll give you this but if you have more than 45 missing days, they can’t offer you that credit back.”

     Dudley believes that students could benefit greatly from having the opportunity to make up their absences during these after-school sessions as opposed to them having to repeat the class.

     “These sessions are helpful in the way that if you are passing a class and you have too many absences, you can still get credit for the class,” Dudley said. “The sessions give students an opportunity to get the credit for a class even though they technically haven’t been in that classroom for that specific class enough, which is great.”

     Nysether-Santos believes that offering motivational words helps prevent the students attending the make-up sessions from losing hope while also taking responsibility for their actions. 

     “The things that I always hear myself say are no shame, no shade, be accountable, [and] be responsible because you can allow yourself to be upset a little bit about your predicament, but then you should think about what can you do to move forward,” Nysether-Santos said. “I always [say that] no matter how hard it is, you will push through.”