"I don't have a ride" is not an excused absence. Everything I do after school has at least a week or more notice to the kid. They can find a ride if they work at it.
Same with tutorials. That core teacher is available 5 days a week before and after school. Your sectional is one day a week. You need to come to practice.
I am more lenient for emergencies, but in general, my rule is "be there."
Consequence? Failing grade. Sectionals are graded. Period.
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What are your consequences for a student who misses after school rehearsals/sectionals?
Are they different if the kid is going to tutorials, has transportation issues, or just didn't feel like coming?
The core teacher is not there 5 days a week. Nor should they be. They have lives and families and are smart enough to work 40 hours a week instead of 60.....
With ya that they should be graded but they should also have purpose other than, "director can't manage time during class so wastes more time after school when it isn't needed"....
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"I don't have a ride" is not an excused absence. Everything I do after school has at least a week or more notice to the kid. They can find a ride if they work at it.
Same with tutorials. That core teacher is available 5 days a week before and after school. Your sectional is one day a week. You need to come to practice.
I am more lenient for emergencies, but in general, my rule is "be there."
Consequence? Failing grade. Sectionals are graded. Period.
Previous Message
What are your consequences for a student who misses after school rehearsals/sectionals?
Are they different if the kid is going to tutorials, has transportation issues, or just didn't feel like coming?
Just curious how that tutorial policy applies to marching rehearsals, which I assume you have several days per week.
We've found that when we assign a grade to after school rehearsals (we have 3 per week during marching), the impact on their grade for missing a rehearsal is pretty small. Lots of kids don't care about losing a few points on their report card.
Design a show that the kids want to be in. Then expect them to be at every marching band rehearsal. We rehearse everyday after school. If a student needs to go tutoring they must request from us and we have to approve it. We only let kids go who really need it. Since we have access to grades, we can easily see if the kid is failing because he is struggling to understand material, or failing because he’s being lazy and not turning in work. We only allow students to go if they truly don’t understand the material, and then we look into other options other than missing marching practices. Most teachers will work with students in the morning before school starts, or even allow them to come in during their lunch periods instead of eating in the cafeteria. Ultimately if we have reason to believe a student is not making a good faith effort to be at rehearsal then first thing that happens is student doesn’t March that week’s game, if it continues he’ll lose his spot and not be able to earn it back. Does this ruffle a few feathers every now and then, yes. Does it dramatically improve rehearsal attendance, yes. But we’ve found that being super strict with has actually improved grades, since we don’t allow students to kids for being lazy and not doing their work. The other key is you have to set the tone during summer band. You don’t have to talk about it, you just have follow through with actions. If a kid misses a summer band practice without notifying us in advance, when he returns someone else is marching what used to be his spot. It’s really that simple.
My marching rehearsals are 100% before school. I have a music rehearsal once weekly after school. My school has very limited field space, and no large parking lots, so we have to share with athletics.
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Just curious how that tutorial policy applies to marching rehearsals, which I assume you have several days per week.
We've found that when we assign a grade to after school rehearsals (we have 3 per week during marching), the impact on their grade for missing a rehearsal is pretty small. Lots of kids don't care about losing a few points on their report card.
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