Rock Island Today

The Alwood School District is making some changes to its middle and high school handbooks, including a new excused absence policy and an additional community service graduation requirement.

"The handbook committee met and these are the changes that we would like to consider making to the handbook for next year," said Alwood Middle-High School Principal Ben Rees at the May 16 School Board meeting. "Number one is the attendance policy, we have nothing in there about mental health days, those were added this year. So on the first stanza there we need to add that students will be permitted five mental health days for their absences. Second change under attendance then is it says after 10 consecutive days a student may be dropped form enrollment by the school, the law is changed, it is 15 consecutive days now."

Rees also talked about a community service requirement.

"Number three, we had a lot of discussion on this one, this was Mrs. Staker’s suggestion, I know a lot of schools are starting to do this," Rees said. "She wanted to add as a gradation requirement that each student will complete 25 community service hours over their four years of high school. She wants to start with five for each of the first three years - freshman year, sophomore year, junior year - and then 10 hours for senior year for a total of 25 over the four years. Obviously if a student transferred in their junior year they would only have to do 15 rather than the whole 25. She would then track that and they could do some of the hours through some of their classes like English and Civics classes."

The state of Illinois is among a few in the country that have expanded laws to include mental and behavioral health days as permitted absences from schools. The law was enacted this year that gives all students five mental health days each year. It is a growing trend in school districts nationwide, especially under the strain of the pandemic.

The National Honors Society includes community service and volunteer hours as a requirement of membership. It has minimum hours to meet to obtain honors, though they vary by school district and membership level. Its other requirements include leadership, scholarship, and character.