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Accommodation: Flexible Attendance & Deadline Policies (with three examples)

When setting expectations, faculty should keep in mind the student is navigating disability impairments that may be debilitating, recurrent, unpredictable, and beyond the student’s control to mitigate quickly. Additionally, an accommodation for reasonable adjustment does not require the professor to grant a limitless amount of absences, remove learning objectives/standards of the course, or waive consequences entirely. Policy adjustments need to be clearly communicated to the student upon receiving an ESS accommodation notice.

Faculty and students should contact educational support services early on to discuss any questions or concerns or to inquire about alternative options before a student’s academic performance is at risk. Should issues arise with a student’s academic performance and flexibility accommodations are approved for the student, policy adjustments and communication will likely be one of ESS’s initial inquires.

For faculty accommodating for flexible attendance and/or deadlines: Faculty should consider quantitative values and avoid overly vague terms. Nevertheless, there may be case-by-case situations for individual students that were not anticipated during the development of your accommodated adjustments, and refinement may be necessary during a term or when you make changes to the general course design for all students.

Below are a few examples of Whitworth professors' adjusted policies that may serve as reference for faculty developing course adjustments.

Example # 1 – Literature Course

"This course depends on participation in class; class time is devoted to discussion rather than to raw information delivery, so when you miss, you miss out, and it tends to show up on exams, especially if you’re not working to make sure you’ve talked with the other students about what you missed."

Un-Adjusted Attendance Policy
"Be here. Missing classes can cause you to miss quizzes and in-class assignments, miss crucial course content like modeling of discussion and analysis, and miss important information. You are responsible for knowing what happened in class on any given day whether or not you are in class that day. I recommend you share your email address and/or phone number with several students that you can contact to find out what happened in class. Unfortunately, I can only teach the class once, and I will not have time to spend an hour outside of class teaching or leading a make-up session. If you miss class, start by asking a classmate what you missed. Come to me for clarification later if necessary. For discussion and analysis days, I recommend spending some time talking with a friend who was there about how the discussion ran in class."

  • If attendance sheet goes around and student is not in class to sign it, they will be counted absent. However, student may appeal at the end of class for a "tardy," which will count as only one third of an absence.
  • In this course, which meets three times a week, each student may miss three classes with no consequence.
  • At absence four, student must check in with professor about attendance or lose half of the possible participation points for the semester. The student should be the one to reach out to the professor, not the other way around.
  • At absence five, student will lose all possible participation points for the semester.
  • At absence six, student will lose 5 percent of their course grade.
  • At absence seven, student will lose another 5 percent.
  • Each subsequent absence will cost 1 percent of the course grade. At this point, the student has missed 20 percent of the class meetings, and it is strongly recommendation that they withdraw from the course. 

Adjusted Attendance Policy (communicated to the student privately)
"For students who need accommodation for more frequent absences, I want to make sure you still get the full value of the course and set yourself up for success on exams. The adjustment allows for six absences and then rolls in consequences at a much slower rate. Where a student without accommodation would have lost 10-20 percent of the course grade (depending on the size of the participation score) at seven absences, this accommodation has zero grade consequences until the seventh absence and then 'costs' only 1 percent per day thereafter."

  • 1-5 absences – no consequence
  • 6 absences – must check in with professor OR lose half participation points
  • 7 absences – zero for participation
  • 8 absences – loss of 1 percent AND recommended withdrawal
  • 9 or more absences – loss of 1 percent per day; continued recommended withdrawal
Example #2 – Writing Course

Adjusted Attendance Policy
"For students who need accommodation for more frequent absences, I want to make sure you still get the full value of the course and set yourself up for success on essays and assignments. The adjustment allows for five absences and then rolls in consequences at a much slower rate. A student without accommodation would have lost 5 percent of the course grade for each absence after the first four absences."

  • 1-5 absences – no consequence (strong recommendation to meet with the professor within one week of absence).
  • 6 absences – must meet with the professor within five days of the absence OR earn zero participation points.
  • 7 absences – must meet with the professor within five days of the absence OR earn zero participation points and loss of one percent.
  • 8 absences – must meet with the professor within five days of the absence OR earn zero participation points and loss of 5 percent.
  • 9 or more absences – must meet with the professor within five days of the absence; zero for participation and loss of 5 percent per day.

Note: The student is responsible for communicating with their professor before an absence. If a disability-related incident occurs and results in an inability to communicate before an absence, in order to make up any in-class exercises and discussions, the student must meet with the professor within one week of the absence.

Due Dates & Deadlines Extension

  • The student is responsible for communicating with the professor before the due date should this need arise. If a disability-related incident occurs and results in an inability to communicate before the due date, the student is responsible for contacting the professor within 24 hours.
  • The professor grants a two-day due date extension without penalty for the following assignments: annotated bibliography, white paper report and discussion boards. If the student does not complete the coursework within the accommodated extension, the professor grants additional days to submit the late work but with a 5 percent point deduction for each day. Rough drafts must be completed by the due date and time so that the student can participate in peer feedback. To accommodate, the student may have one less page than is required for the rough draft.
  • Team presentations must be given on the day they are assigned.
Example #3 – Science Lab

Excused Absences, Arriving Late and Leaving Early

  • Lab is participation-based. Students must attend seven of the 10 labs for at least 75 percent of the class time to pass. Missing three labs is generally the cutoff at which students fail the class without this accommodation, and, excepting extraordinary circumstances, this class does not offer makeup assignments.
  • One set of scores is always dropped for all students. Students with accommodations may complete makeup assignments for two missed labs.
  • All students are permitted to leave a little early if their lab partner(s) is willing to handle the experiment without them. Students with accommodations should be in groups of three so there is never any issue of too much work for partners in the event the student needs to leave lab early to manage symptoms. Partners and/or the lab instructor will email the data to the student so they can complete the post-lab assignments.
  • If the student leaves too early and misses more than a quarter (25 percent) of the experiment, they will not have participated enough for full credit. Partial credit will be given or the student may count that day as an absence to be dropped or made up as appropriate.
  • The chemistry department has a very strict late policy for labs, with students arriving more than 15 minutes late being turned away for safety. A student with accommodations for arriving late may have an extra 15 minutes without penalty. The student will not be penalized for arriving up to half an hour late, but will be turned away after half an hour of class time has passed. Being in a group of three, as described above, allows the student to get caught up on the safety information without contributing to an unsafe environment.