Attendance policy at your school

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Hey I was wondering if everyone else's nursing school has an attendance policy for lecture? Mine is super strict! If I miss 2 lectures during the semester, I'm automatically withdrawn (and 2 tardies equals 1 absence). So if I'm late twice in a semester and then say have an emergency like a car accident or something, I'm out! It seems like an unnecessary rule since if you're passing the tests, you're learning the material, right? Also, it's super annoying because for the most part, the instructor just reads verbatim from the powerpoint slides, so it sometimes seems like a waste of 3.5 hours :yawn:

Specializes in Critical Care, Trauma, Neuroscience.

Hmmm I wonder if the difference between the mandatory lecture vs non-mandatory is ADN program vs BSN? It seems like the 4 year colleges don't really care too much about attendance (i.e. they treat you like an ADULT) whereas the tech colleges are more concerned with it for some reason. That's just been my personal observation around my area...

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Hmmm I wonder if the difference between the mandatory lecture vs non-mandatory is ADN program vs BSN? It seems like the 4 year colleges don't really care too much about attendance (i.e. they treat you like an ADULT) whereas the tech colleges are more concerned with it for some reason. That's just been my personal observation around my area...

I go to a community college. The nursing program claims the attendance is mandated by the state. I don't know if that's the truth but the school itself makes a huge deal about attendance. They say it's because they get audited for attendance...

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Hmmm I wonder if the difference between the mandatory lecture vs non-mandatory is ADN program vs BSN? It seems like the 4 year colleges don't really care too much about attendance (i.e. they treat you like an ADULT) whereas the tech colleges are more concerned with it for some reason. That's just been my personal observation around my area...

That may be... I'm in a BSN program.

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Hmmm I wonder if the difference between the mandatory lecture vs non-mandatory is ADN program vs BSN? It seems like the 4 year colleges don't really care too much about attendance (i.e. they treat you like an ADULT) whereas the tech colleges are more concerned with it for some reason. That's just been my personal observation around my area...

Im in an ADN program and we aren't required to go to lecture.

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I was in a diploma program. They wanted perfect attendance. I think they'd actually allow you to miss 10% of the hours, maybe, but you had to call in ahead and cancel. They passed an attendance sheet around the room every hour, and we had to sign in.

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^^ ditto to starmickey -- I'm in an ADN program and am not required to attend lectures, either.

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Our syllabus says you have to attend 85% of the contact hours or you automatically fail. Not sure if this really works out to 85% but we're allowed to miss 2 lectures, 2 labs, and 2 clinical days per semester. If you exceed that, then you're out. The instructors vary with their late policy. Some say if you're not there for roll call then you are absent, others say more than 10 minutes late = absent. There are no excused absences for any reason. If you are late or absent or leave early the day of a test or quiz, you get a 0 - there are no makeups. At first I thought this was strict, but then I heard about schools making you pay to make up a missed clinical day. Even though we're a night program, we are assigned to a few random day experiences for clinical (like school nurse, OR, women's clinic, etc.) Some people cannot always get off from work or find someone to watch their kids during the day so they have to miss those - I guess that's why we're allowed two absences. What I don't think is fair is if you are sick and you show up to clinical, but the instructor sends you home (especially if you were assigned to the NICU or something that day), it still counts as an absence.

I wish I wasn't required to attend lectures! I'm so afraid of missing one because we have unannounced quizzes and if you're not there you get a zero!

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We just got our syllabus for next semester today. We can miss 2 days of class, 3 days of clinical, and 1.5 days of lab.

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Our program says that if you miss class, clinical, or lab twice in a semester then you fail. Also, your absences are all counted together. For instance, suppose you miss clinical today, and class three days from now, there are your two absences, and you are out of the program. Also, if we are late twice that counts as an absence, and if we are late to class or lab three times or more, we can be removed from the program. We can also be removed from the program if we are late to clinical more than twice. And if we are late to clinical without calling our instructor before arriving, we are failed for the day and sent home. If you are failed twice during any clinical semester, you are out of the program. There are a lot of ways to get removed from our program.

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Specializes in ICU + Infection Prevention.

Attendance policies are asinine for college students except for clinical. Tests and papers are your grade. Labs should have competencies that must be proven. Everything else is middle school.

Unfortunately, most nursing schools, including mine, are more like middle school. It sadly sets the standard for the profession from the very beginning.

My program (BSN):

Labs: 0 absences allowed, you have to do a makeup lab.

Lecture: 10% of your grade is attendance.

Clinical: Allowed to miss ONE clinical day during the entire program, any more you must make up and will be billed for staff hours.

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For lectures we do not have an attendance policy. They could care less if we come or not. They say that we are adults and we should be able to be responsible about it. On the other hand, all lectures are streamed and we can watch them anytime we need to. So, if you miss class you can just watch it at home.

For clinical, we can only miss 14 clinical hours per semester. That's not a lot. If you miss more than 14...you are dropped from the program.

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Geez, I wish mine didn't care if we went to lecture. It would sure make my life easier. All the instructors do is read straight from the PowerPoints. It might be a surprise to them but I know how to read and I can read them at home.

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