Participation in Senior Ditch Day will be riskier than ever this year. On Jan. 24, Principal Barnaby Payne held a mandatory senior student meeting to explain how seniors must maintain “good standing” to walk in their June graduation ceremony. Following the meeting, the administration emailed students and parents a description of good standing status. While this general policy has been in effect for several years, this year’s attendance rules are more onerous than in the past.

The Tamalpais Union High School District (TUHSD) 2023-24 Parent/Student Handbook explains that a good-standing senior can have up to five unexcused absences in any class (including SMART) during their final semester. 

However, the administration has gone further than in previous years by adding a new attendance requirement not in the TUHSD handbook. Under the new rule, seniors cannot have more than nine excused absences in any one class, including SMART. An excused absence includes illness, medical appointments, jury duty, religious obligations, mental health days, quarantine, election participation, naturalization ceremony, spending time with a parent in military deployment or an absence pre-approved by the principal.

Assistant Principal Lisa Kemp explained this rule was developed so certain students would not unfairly benefit from their parents’ leniency about attending school.

“You’ve got kids that get excused because their parents are on [top of] it,” Kemp said. “And you’ve got other kids who aren’t getting excused. Some parents excuse their kids cutting class, and others won’t.”

Not only is the new rule more restrictive, but it’s also unclear. Some believe it applies to full-day rather than single-class absences. Dean of Students Tyrone Robinson explained it as full-day absences during the senior student session, and many seniors, including Kate Vare, understood it that way.

“[The rule] definitely means nine total school days regardless of how many classes you’d be missing,” Vare said.

But Kemp disagreed, saying the rules for excused and unexcused absences do not apply to full days.

“It’s five [unexcused or nine excused] absences in any one class,” Kemp said.

Unexcused absences include any absence that is not explained when a student returns to school, including a student’s departure from the campus without explanation, family trips and vacations and a warranted absence (such as a court appearance, funeral service, religious event, college visit or employment interview) that has not been approved in advance by the administration.

As an unexcused absence, Senior Ditch Day may cost a senior the ability to join in graduation. Senior Ditch Day is a beloved tradition in which the senior class skips school on a predetermined day that is posted on social media to spread the word. Senior Ditch Day is rumored to have occurred the Tuesday after Memorial Day in 2023. 

The stricter absenteeism requirement reflects the administration’s decision to enforce student attendance more vigorously this year. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, chronic absenteeism has become a significant issue at Redwood and other high schools nationwide. 

In the recent Nov. 14 TUHSD board meeting, Dr. Jeanine Evians-Robinson, Senior Director of Student Services, presented Redwood attendance data. It showed that in the first six weeks of the school year, 774 students (or 43 percent) missed an average of two school days. 1,426 (79 percent) students missed an average of nine class periods.

“What this data equates to is that there are too many students missing classes,” Evians-Robinson said.

To address this issue, Redwood hired Robinson as Dean of Students at the beginning of the 2023-24 school year. 

At the senior-only session, Payne encouraged students to comply with the rules, describing the importance of the graduation ceremony.

“We have students that have faced tremendous personal hardship. Just the fact they’re receiving their diploma will represent an incredible journey for them,” Payne said. “The Redwood diploma is what all of you will have in common, and it will connect all of you, and all of us, for the rest of our lives.”