Attendance

Disability- or chronic health-related functional impacts can be extended or unpredictable. An accommodation for occasional excused absences helps a student manage those impacts. For example, a student’s rheumatoid arthritis may unexpectedly flare up for multiple days, or a student with polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome may experience severe pain and nausea.

Students are expected to attend all classes in which they are enrolled. However, the spirit of the accommodation is that a student should not be penalized for absences due to a disability- or chronic health-related functional impact.

If an absence occurs due to unexpected or unavoidable extenuating circumstances such as acute illness, injury, attending a medical appointment, personal or family emergency, or conflicting responsibility, refer to the course syllabus or academic concession regulation.

Student responsibilities

Contact your instructor after releasing your accommodation letter to discuss your attendance needs as early in the term as possible. It may be helpful to review the course attendance policy ahead of time.

Notify your instructor if you will be absent. You may not have advance warning of a disability-related impact. Consider using the template email provided in the below section to notify your instructor.

Tell your instructor how long you expect to be absent and update them as early as possible if your needs change.

Collect any missed notes from other students or materials from your instructor.

Complete the learning outcomes of the course. You can request an academic concession if you cannot complete the course requirements.

Email template

This template is intended to provide an idea of how to communicate with your instructor when notifying them of a disability-related absence.

Instructor responsibilities

Contact the student to discuss their attendance needs if they do not contact you. Allow for the possibility that the student may need time to schedule similar discussions for several courses.

Determine an appropriate method for the student to notify you of an absence, such as an email with a particular subject line or a phone call.

Negotiate alternative work or an extension if the student will miss an important due date. The student may be unable to discuss this when they notify you that they will be absent.

Provide the student with materials you distributed to the class, such as hand-outs or links to videos.

Do not ask the student for details about the cause of their absence. Information about disability and health is confidential. Contact the accessibility advisor if you have questions about the use of the accommodation. The accessibility advisor reviewed medical documentation before assigning the accommodation.

Examples

Accommodated absences

At the start of the course, the instructor informs the class that they cannot allow much flexibility about attendance because most of the learning depends on classroom interactions. The instructor informs the student that their attendance accommodation will be considered. The student is then hospitalized for a week at the end of the course and cannot complete a presentation.

The instructor allows the student to deliver the presentation to the instructor alone because it will not fundamentally affect the learning outcomes of the course.

Unaccommodated absences

The instructor negotiate with the student that they can be absent more than the syllabus allows as long as they complete all coursework and stay in communication about their progress. It is the last week of the course, and the student has not turned in any assignments, notified the instructor of any absences, nor attended any lectures.

The instructor does not extend any deadlines because the student has not taken responsibility for communication or coursework.

How to help

Include your attendance policy in the course syllabus. Clearly explain how you handle absences, missed exams, and late assignments. Learning and Teaching Innovation (LTI) provides guidance and a prepared statement for your syllabus.

Provide notes and course materials to all students through Brightspace or the course website so that implementing an individual accommodation is not necessary. This also helps students with an audio recording or peer note-taker accommodation.

Determine if attendance is an essential requirement in the course:

• Does the course fundamentally rely on student participation?
• Are student contributions a significant part of the learning process?
• Does a student’s absence negatively affect other students’ learning?
• Does each week’s material build on participation from the previous week?