Pinellas school superintendent Julie Janssen is recommending a temporary change to district policy to prevent high school students trying to earn exam exemptions from coming to school with swine flu.
High school principals asked Janssen at a meeting Wednesday for a change in the policy, which allows students to skip exams if they maintain an A or B averagein a course and have few absences.
The new policy still would allow students to skip exams as long as they earn an A or B in each of the first, second and third six-week grading periods. But the district would drop the requirement that students could miss no more than two or six days in a semester, depending on which schedule their school follows.
The move comes three weeks after the Hillsborough School District voted to continue a suspension of its exam exemption policy. The incentive program had allowed students with at least a C average and perfect attendance to skip up to seven of their semester exams each year. Those with just a few absences could skip one or two exams per semester.
Hillsborough school officials first suspended the policy in May, concerned that students would be sent to school even when they were sick.
Signs of that already have appeared in Pinellas.
"Our principals have had calls from parents who were concerned because they were afraid that what we had in place right now would encourage their children to go to school when they were sick," Janssen said. "This is a much more reasonable policy for the short term."
Last week, Octavine Swanson sent her son, a junior at Northeast High, to school even though he woke up feeling ill.
"My son doesn't want to miss school if it means he'll have to take an exam," Swanson said. "That's the perk for students who do well."
The idea that kids might be coming to school sick and spreading germs angered Robin Crawford, the mother of two sons at Gibbs High School.
"I don't feel good about that at all," she said.
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended that those with flu-like illness stay home for at least 24 hours after they no longer have a fever, even if they are using antiviral drugs.
The Pinellas School Board must still approve the changes to the exam exemption policy and will consider them on Sept. 15.
"I think it has some merit," said board Chairwoman Peggy O'Shea. "If the principals think it will keep sick kids from coming to school, it may be what we need right now. The other alternative would be to do away with the policy, but it would be hard to remove it this semester since we started the year with it."
While the threat of swine flu has sharpened the focus for Pinellas on exam exemptions, the policy remains controversial.
School Board member Mary Brown would scrap the practice.
"Bringing the swine flu in is sort of a diversion,'' she said. "The real issue is, should we let students exempt final exams or should we not? My answer is they should take all the exams."
Board member Nina Hayden was more cautious. She said the exam exemptions help motivate some students to go to school and focus on academics. "At least they're thinking I need to get myself to school," she said. "The message is getting across."
Pinellas' exam exemption policy dates back to the late 1980s and was created as an incentive for good attendance.
Up until this year, it allowed high school students who earned a course grade of A or B and hadn't missed more than nine days of school to exempt exams in one-semester courses. Students in yearlong courses could opt to skip one of two semester exams.
The number of allowable absences changed this year when the district's high schools added a class period. Most schools on a seven-period day reduced their allowable absences to two per semester. Schools with block scheduling decreased their allowable absences to six per semester.
The adjustment was necessary, district officials say, because while the new schedule gives students more opportunity to take electives, the amount of time for student instruction remained the same by state mandate.
Translation: More classes are being squeezed into the same amount of time, which means less time per class.
District officials are calling the decrease in allowable absences an "unintended consequence" of the new schedules. Combined with the threat of swine flu, they knew they had to tweak the exam exemption policy, said Barbara Thornton, associate superintendent of high school programs.
A committee of parents, teachers and students will look at revamping the entire exam policy later this year.
"We can go from one end to the other on this," Janssen said. "We may end up doing away with it altogether."
Times staff writer Ron Matus contributed to this report. Donna Winchester can be reached at winchester@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8413.
Pinellas high school exam exemption policy
Last year: A student on a six-period day schedule could miss no more than 9 days in a course per semester; a student on block scheduling could miss no more than four days per quarter.
This year: Students at most schools on a seven-period day can miss no more than two days per semester to maintain their exam exemption. Students at most schools with a block schedule can miss no more than six days per semester.
The proposed temporary change: Subject to School Board approval, students would qualify for an exam exemption in courses where they maintain an A or B in each of the first, second and third six-week grading periods. The attendance requirement would be dropped.
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