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Discussion

Strict Attendance Guidelines..

I'm a first year LPN student (been in college for 2 years doing pre req's and waiting) and I can't believe how strict our attendance policy is! I mean, I can totally understand why regular, prompt attendance is important, but in one of my classes you can only miss 10% of the total hours of the class (including clinicals), which evens out to 4.5 hours, so if you miss more then 1 class period you FAIL.

I have the flu! AND tomorrow is our midterm exam! :banghead: What should I do? Go to class and interrupt everyone with the constant hacking (and hope I don't puke), potentially infecting everyone else?

Or stay home and take the atomatic 5% decrease in points to take the test late, plus pray that I nor my 3 year old daughter gets sick again until December? I'm so conflicted!

What would you do? I'm running a slight fever and coughing excessively.

What is your attendance policies like?

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I'd call the instructor and let her know what is going on and find out what they advise you to do instead of asking us.

  • Author

Obviously, that was my first step.

The response was clear as mud. "Don't come sick", yet she recanted the entire attendance policy to me.

Anyone wanna just commiserate with me about strict attendance policies? :D

Yes, that is ridiculous! That worries me about starting NS. What are you going to do? Do you feel any better ?

Well in that case if the instructor doesn't want to bend a little since you are obviously sick then I would go in anyway and take the test. What other choice do you have?

I can understand why NS has to have strict attendence policies BUT they forget that we are paying their salaries not the other way around.

In my last semester of school I had to miss at least 5 classes, maybe more because my company sent me to day shift and I couldn't leave my job.

The DON brought me in the office and asked me what was going on--I told her the story and that I was not quiting my job before I got my degree--I had bills to pay.

Like I told her--it's on me--if I don't pass because I missed these classes then I'll come back and redo the semester but no way was I going to quit.

I graduated with honors even after missing all those classes and I can tell you if they tried to boot me out I would have put up a stink. Remember you are paying them--they work for you!!!

I know it is scary to stand up to them but you have to--go around the instructor to her superior and don't let them do this to you.

Wow one of those teachers, dont come sick but here is what happens. Ok that does suck. I would go and show her how sick you are so she can send you home

  • Author
Wow one of those teachers, dont come sick but here is what happens. Ok that does suck. I would go and show her how sick you are so she can send you home

Yeah, your probably right. Im going to the doctor for a note tomorrow too, just in case something happens later on and I miss more classes. I took some mucinex and Im not coughing as much but that crap wires me and I won't sleep well.. oh well.. lol Im such a clown.

  • Experts

anyone wanna just commiserate with me about strict attendance policies?

drag yourself in no matter how ill you are, take medications and tissues with you and take your midterm exam. you're a nursing student. protect others from your microbes.

obviously, attendance is important not only to the school, but to future employers in the area where this school is. i was a manager who hired new grads and one of the things that we asked of the schools was about a student's attendance record. it is important. we did not hire new grads who had poor school attendance records. at one facility that i worked, our human resources department terminated a lot of employees because of attendance problems. attendance, for that facility was a serious matter. when employees don't come to work as scheduled it costs the facility overtime and money they had to pay out in benefits in order to cover the time the employee who called off work didn't come in. it has probably been a problem among facilities in your area and your school is merely responding to problem they have seen in servicing the area of nursing they serve. they may have also noted that students with poor attendance at their nursing classes had a lot of difficulty getting hired later as new grads and took a lot of complaints from those graduates later and this is now their response. getting to all classes and clinicals is really important although i know you don't see that right now.

believe me, some employers would be even more ruthless. they would accept an excuse from your doctor for why you couldn't come in, but still mark you as missing work and discipline you as their policy called for if that's what their rule was. and in this economy. . .there will be no shortage of nurses to replace the ones who get terminated for attendance problems.

Get used to it the work place is the same way.

Medicate yourself and wash your hands a lot. Bring tissues and hand sanitizer.

It is wrong that they say don't come sick and then don't let you not come in, expecially when you work with vulnerable people. But that is just how it is.

  • Author

In any normal climate I would agree that sucking it up and going in would have been the best bet, but considering I havent been to the Dr yet I decided against it. My college is pretty up in arms over the spread of H1N1, and a faculty member told me this morning that any student with visable signs of flu like symptoms is sent home immediately.

I dont know where you guys work, but working in health care while contagious is incredibly dangerous. I seriously hope someone takes initiative and contacts the health department before you kill someone with a compromised immune system. Do you know how many elderly people die each year from the flu?

  • Experts

If it's any comfort :), most nursing schools have attendance policies as strict as yours and there are no exceptions -- if you miss more than the allowed number of hours, you flunk the class, regardless of how good your excuse was, and, in most cases, that means you flunk out of the program (we've had people venting here at different times about how they got kicked out of nursing school because they had to have emergency surgery -- they missed more than the allowable number of hours, so they were out).

There is a reason for this, though, beside the faculty and administration just being mean-spirited witches -- the state BONs require that programs include a specific number of classroom and clinical hours in each specialty area, and, if you don't complete that minimum number of hours, you are not eligible to write the NCLEX and get licensed. The required numbers of hours are high enough that most schools don't have a lot of "wiggle room" in their schedules.

Most employers are the same way (but without a BON mandate -- just because they're cheap! :)) -- they all say, "Don't come to work sick," but they still count an absence for a legitimate illness against you. At my current employment, more than three absences in a year, and you're not eligible for a raise or the end-of-year bonus (if there is one! :)), no matter how legitimate and necessary the absences may have been, how many doctors' notes you have, etc.

I agree you should go to school and do your best (under the circumstances) on the exam. I hope you feel better soon!

This will sound nasty, and I don't mean it too. If they're not going to be flexible about missing time, go in sick and take the test. I'm guessing you're not allowed to sit close to your classmates to take the test anyway, so just try and be as far away as possible so you don't infect anyone else. I have a little one at home too, so I know what you mean about praying they don't get sick and missing more time at school.

I suggest DayQuil!:D That helps me feel good enough to get through any test. Then go home and rest!

I have worked in a few different longterm care settings, and many resturaunts before that where I was in direct contact with many people and their food every day.

This sort of attendance policy is the norm. What you say is true, but that is not how the workforce is. People who are absent too much do too illness or kids do not last long. Neither do those who question the policies too much.

I work in a very upscale retirement community which has better benefits and such than most. We are disciplined for absences, even with a doctors excuse. If someone has respitory symptoms they wear a mask.

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