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"That's
impossible. You cannot miss more than two days this semester. You will
have to withdraw. No exceptions."
I walked away from the student services office feeling defeated. Yet challenges
arising from missing school for the Feast of Tabernacles were nothing new. I
had faced inflexible high school teachers and principals before, as well as
college professors who promoted policy over conviction. I had also experienced
power struggles that ended with a barely tolerant shift in policy that "allowed"
for observing God's Holy Days.
I have always come through these challenges relatively unscathed and with high grades, despite threats of failure for missing days and work in class. Somehow school authorities don't believe it can be done, or that there can be any valid reason to miss school besides a death in the family or serious illness.
But this particular situation felt different. It was my last semester of college. For an elementary education major, the entire final semester of the program is spent in a public school. We are tested on our ability to teach and handle all the responsibilities of a real classroom.
The attendance policy for this semester of student teaching allows for no unexcused absences, and no more than two excused absences, period. The policy has literally prevented students from finishing for being out sick for three days. There are no exceptions to the policy, especially not for eight excused days for religious reasons.
I spent the afternoon going up the "chain of command" in the department. Each person I met with listened briefly and then turned me away. "There's just no way. It's the policy" were the words I kept hearing. When I left the student services office after again being told that what I was asking for was impossible, my last option was to talk to the dean.
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