JCA-P1 - Student Attendance

All students within the Division are expected to attend classes regularly.  Academic success is obviously linked to attendance at school.  The Board of Trustees and its administration therefore encourage students and parents to assume responsibility for school attendance.

The Prairie Spirit School Division believes that students must assume increasing responsibility for their learning as they advance through grade levels.  In keeping with this belief, students may be allowed special privileges in the senior high grades. Student privileges allow students to be absent from school when they are not scheduled for classes.  The process may involve a note from a parent/guardian and/or sign out/in features.  School Principals, in consultation with their staff and parent advisory councils, are responsible for developing individual school attendance policies.  The Superintendent must be informed about the specifics of such policies.

Each school will inform parents and students of divisional and school attendance policies and possible consequences of student absences.

All pupils between the ages of seven and eighteen years inclusive are required to attend school whenever classes are in session.

The following are exemptions to compulsory attendance:

1. A child may attend a private school;

2. A child may be on a home study program that is monitored by Manitoba Education;

3. A child who is unable to attend school by reason of sickness, injury, or other unavoidable cause; or,

4. A child who is absent from school on any date regarded as a holiday by the church or denomination with which the child is affiliated.

[PSA 259-262]

The Division will make every effort to identify resident students who are of compulsory school attendance age.