LYNN — Seventy-five members of the Lynn Classical Rams Pop Warner football and cheerleading teams advanced to the national finals in Florida, which has has prompted the School Committee to begin discussions about revamping the district’s attendance policy.

At the heart of the issue is that, because the Rams are a non-Lynn Public Schools organization, any absences resulting from their activities are considered unexcused.

“We’re penalizing them for earning the right to represent our city nationally,” Mackenzie Charles, Lynn Rams Board member and football director, said. “I don’t want that to deter their further schooling.”

Committee member Brian Castellanos said that a number of phone calls from parents prompted the committee to add the attendance policy discussion to Thursday’s meeting agenda.

Superintendent Evonne Alvarez said that the administration made the decision to count the absences as excused rather than unexcused for this occasion.

“This is not a decision that would be going forward and doing this every year,” Alvarez said. “We need to reconvene and make some decision about the entirety of the policy.”

She recommended that the attendance policy go to subcommittee for review “to consider restorative practices instead of a punitive approach to grade-recovery opportunities, as well as evaluating any enrichment opportunities that may be non-LPS conducted.”

She added that the committee should also review which outside organizations the district would work with.

“What are those pre-vetted community partners that we are willing to work with and say, ‘These are things that we want the students in our community to participate in,’ and how do we approach that attendance practice?” Alvarez said.  

Deputy Superintendent Kim Powers shared a communication the administration passed on to principals regarding the one-time policy waiver.

The letter stated that the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education identifies all absences, regardless of whether they are excused or unexcused, in calculating chronic absenteeism.

“A record review of many of the students attending this field trip reveals that, with this trip, they will be at or exceeding the chronic absenteeism rate for this school year,” the letter continued. “As we learned during the COVID pandemic, nothing replaces in-person instruction.”

It noted that 23 middle-school students would be on the trip, and that the five absences that are a result of the trip would push nine of those students to chronically absent status.

At the elementary level, nine of the 17 students taking the trip would become chronically absent.

Committee member Eric Dugan asked if the administration has communicated with the families about these consequences.

“The principals have been communicating with the families, and the families were not happy with the response,” Deputy Superintendent Maricel Goris answered.

Committee member Lenny Peña called it a unique situation.

“At a time when we’ve got so many negative things going around, I think it’s time we do something positive,” Peña said. “We really need to take a deep dive and look at our policy moving forward.”

Committee member Lorraine Gately said that when students work hard to reach a championship level, they should be supported. 

“They should be patted on the back and everything should be ‘Let’s go Rams. Let’s go down there and take that trophy,’” Gately said.