By T. Keung Hui for the Raleigh News & Observer
North Carolina public high schools are no longer allowed to fail students solely because they have too many absences in a class.
Many high schools have used an “FF” grade to fail students for attendance violations — typically more than 10 absences from a class in a semester. But North Carolina public high schools now can’t fail a student — no matter how many absences they have — as long as they have a passing grade in the course.
“A student cannot receive an F for attendance,” Sneha Shah-Coltrane, senior director for Academic Policy and Advanced Learning at the state Department of Public of Instruction, said at last week’s State Board of Education meeting. “So you can’t fail a kid if they’re making an A but just don’t show up to class.”
The grading policy change was approved by the State Board of Education in November. It goes into effect for the 2025-26 school year that most high school students will begin later this month.
Schools can still impose non-academic consequences for excessive absences. For instance, schools can give in-school suspension and take away privileges such as participation in extra-curricular activities.
Schools can also still fail a student who has a large number of absences. But the failure has to be due to the student’s grades not being high enough.
The change comes amid the long-running debate over whether grades should reflect only academic performance or include other measures such as behavior and attendance..
Poor attendance is often, but not always, tied into poor academic performance.
Some schools oppose policy change
Some school districts and high schools are not in favor of the state policy change, especially at a time when student absenteeism has become a major problem.
The percentage of North Carolina students who are chronically absent, meaning they’ve missed 10% or more of school days, soared during the pandemic. In 2019, 16% of North Carolina students were chronically absent. By 2024, 25% of North Carolina students were chronically absent.
“I’ve heard from some principals who have concerns about the intersection of how not valuing attendance will impact their populations,” Beckie Spears, principal of Wilkesboro Elementary School in Wilkes County and an adviser to the state board, said at the Aug. 6 state board meeting.
Shah-Coltrane responded that the state is not saying it’s not valuing attendance.
Schools were failing students over absences
In November, the state board approved several changes to the high school transcript policy. One major change bars high schools from awarding pass/fail grades in core classes required for graduation.
Another big change was to define the FF grade for the first time. In the absence of a state definition, Shah-Coltrane said many local districts and principals used it to fail a student who may have been passing a class but who didn’t come to a class.
“It really shouldn’t be for a child who is not attending school but is passing the course because that is an adult problem,” Shah-Coltrane told the state board in October. “If the kid is not coming to school and they’ve been gone for 40 days but they’re still getting a B, what’s happening, right? We can’t just give the kid a FF.”
The state board changed the policy in November to say “FF may only be used for a student who does not have a passing grade based on content and also has significant absences based on local board policy.”
Schools have been moving to get the new policy in place for this fall.
“While there has been no specific language prohibiting the issuance of FF’s in local WCPSS policy, many high schools had moved away from the practice prior to the recent update to State Board policy,” the Wake County school system said in a statement Friday. “Schools are continuing to update school practices, communications and website information aligned with the new state-wide policy for the 2025-2026 school year.”
‘No child can fail only for attendance’
But Shah-Coltrane said some North Carolina school districts still need clarity on how to implement the FF change. Shah-Coltrane proposed several more revisions to the high school transcript policy at the August state board meeting, including adding a sentence saying “a student may not fail a course based solely on attendance.”
While some school district chief academic officers may not want to admit it publicly, Shah-Coltrane said it’s more of a classroom issue than an attendance issue if a student is getting a B grade while still missing a large amount of class time.
“No child can fail only for attendance,” Shah-Coltrane said. “We would hope that that is a great conversation for principals to have and start having some really honest conversations with classroom teachers on what is happening in classrooms if a child is able to pass a class but they don’t show up for 20% of it.”
State board member Catty Moore noted that the FF change is occurring at the same time the state is allowing the use of credit by demonstrated mastery. Students can get credit for some high school courses without having to enroll in them if they can demonstrate their mastery of the content.
The state board delayed the vote until September to address other concerns raised about the high school transcript policy revisions.