For students to successfully complete their college work, regular class attendance is necessary, and students are expected to attend all sessions of the class in which they are enrolled. The policies below address student attendance management.
Excessive absences are defined as 6% of the total hours of class time (view Los Rios Regulation R-2222).
Instructors shall state in each course syllabus what constitutes excessive absence for that course.
Each class has been assigned a maximum number of students by the division based on classroom seating capacity and academic and equipment factors. During the first week of the semester, students may enroll in full-semester classes that are less than 90% full, without the faculty member’s permission. Beginning the second week, a class permission number is required to add the course. A student may not add a semester-length course after the first ten days of the semester. Students may add classes after the last specified date of enrollment only due to extenuating circumstances. Proper forms can be obtained from the division office.
Students may add to a closed class only with the instructor’s permission and a permission number issued by the instructor. Faculty with closed classes may add students at their discretion based on room capacity and instructional considerations. Students shall be enrolled first by the waitlist order. Once the waitlist has been exhausted, faculty may add additional students through an equitable method of their choice (random selection, order of class sign-in, etc.). A student is not officially enrolled in a class until the faculty has processed the add by providing the student with a permission number and the student has registered for the course. It is important to add no more students than is instructionally appropriate or the room can safely accommodate.
Instructors are responsible for checking their class rosters for accuracy throughout the semesters. Class Rosters are available in the Employee Login drop-down menu under Intranet Unified Login. If your roster is inaccurate, send an email to the Kim Goff, Admissions and Records supervisor: GoffK@scc.losrios.edu.
Auditing
Auditing is not permitted. A student may not remain in class if his/her name does not appear on the online class roster or does not have a copy of their class schedule that includes the class. Students whose names are not listed on the class roster should be sent to the Registration/Financial Aid Lab (Student Services Building, 1st Floor) or Admissions & Records for proper enrollment processing. Graded work should not be returned to students not officially enrolled in a course.
Census Date
Monitoring of class rosters throughout the semester is critical since the failure of faculty to drop non-attending students may result in a liability for the college if the student is receiving financial aid. On the census date, faculty should verify that all students listed on their roster are “actively” enrolled. Students who are not attending on the census date must be dropped from the class. If students are dropped in error, faculty may contact Admissions & Records to have the student re-instated. You can find the census dates for fall and spring semesters on the Academic Calendar.
Final Grades
Rosters must be accurate at the time final grades are submitted.
Canvas
For faculty who maintain course materials on Canvas, both the Canvas and the official rosters (found on the Intranet) must be reconciled.
A student may also be dropped from a class at any time during the semester for excessive absences, which are defined as 6% of the total hours of class time. Instructors should use the same procedures as above to drop students for excessive absence. Absence policies to be enforced in a course must be included in the Syllabus/Student Information Sheet.
A faculty member in an instructional area (especially career technical areas) may establish a policy that is more restrictive than the college policy when required by outside accrediting and/or licensing agency. When faculty members utilize either the college absence policy or their own policy, they must provide the policy to students in the Syllabus/Student Information Sheet.
Faculty members are encouraged to use discretion in excusing student absences. For example, documented illness and official college field trips could be considered as valid reasons for students to be excused from class and granted an opportunity to make up the work missed. In any case, any instructor drops should be consistent with the policy outlined in the course Syllabus/Student Information Sheet.
It is the responsibility of the student to drop the class to ensure that he/she is officially dropped by the drop deadline and will not receive a grade penalty for the course. However, faculty are responsible for ensuring the accuracy of their class rosters.
- Students who fail to attend the first session of a class may be dropped by the instructor.
- Students who have not attended at least one of the first three sessions of a class will be dropped as a no show following the third session of the class.
- If a class is scheduled for only one session per week, then students who have not attended at least one of the first two sessions of a class will be dropped as a no show following the second session of the class.
Record keeping is an important faculty responsibility. It is required that accurate and complete student grade records be kept for a period of three years. Attendance records are only required for positive attendance classes. In these classes, attendance records should also be kept for three years.
Keeping attendance records is recommended for the following reasons:
- Attendance records are important if it becomes necessary to drop a student for non-attendance—in the event of an audit, faculty members must be able to provide the attendance records for each student dropped because of poor attendance.
- Faculty members must indicate the “last date of attendance” when issuing an unsatisfactory grade to students.