When students head back to school Aug. 12, they might discover a new policy covering absences from school, including items such as field trip and athletic and academic events.

Coweta County School System executive director of administrative services Blake Bass said the system's policy committee is looking at limiting the number of consecutive days a student can miss school.

In the policy committee's meeting this week, Bass said the committee will recommend the Coweta County Board of Education institute a policy that a student cannot attend a field trip that would require the student to miss more than three consecutive days of school.

The only way a student could attend an event missing more than three days of school would be by meeting certain criteria, Bass said.

The criteria include:

ä A student must have a 70 grade point average.

ä A student must have no suspensions or expulsions on his or her record.

ä The principal must recommend that the student be allowed to miss more than three days.

If a student is allowed to miss more than three consecutive days, he still cannot have more than six days a semester for field trips and cannot miss more than 10 days a year for field trips.

The proposed policy would cover all administrative leaves from school, such as field trips, athletic events and academic competition, Bass said.

“The board is real concerned about students missing instruction time, especially in high school with our block scheduling. A student is not just missing an hour of instruction, but one and a half hours,” bass said.

The policy will be presented to the school board at its Aug. 13 meeting for consideration.

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