Home sick from school? In some South Carolina districts, missed days could cost money
When Adrienne Livingston saw her son Jourdin’s report card last week, she noticed an unusual “FA” letter grade next to two of his courses. She didn’t know what it meant.
Livingston called Rock Hill High School for clarification, and that’s when she learned he failed due to absences and would have to attend makeup school to receive course credit.
He’d also have to pay for it — $20 per session.
In South Carolina, state regulations require high school students to be in class for at least 120 hours in order to receive credit for each course. Except in extenuating circumstances, anything less results in failure.
Schools can typically forgive a student’s first six absences without violating the state’s seat time requirement. Beyond that, districts implement policies allowing kids to earn back lost time. For some, that comes at a cost.
Makeup policies vary by school district
The South Carolina State Board of Education sets seat time requirements, but leaves room for flexibility on how schools enforce them.
Regulations do not mention fees, for example. It is the choice of local districts such as Rock Hill and Fort Mill to charge for makeup sessions.
Most of that money goes toward staffing since teachers have to monitor sessions outside of work hours, according to Fort Mill School District spokesperson Joseph Burke. About 150 students have participated so far this year at a staff cost of just over $1,400. Those students have paid about $1,500 to attend.
Fort Mill charges $10 per course per day and only allows students to make up three absences after the first six, which are generally forgiven. Students cannot recover course credit if they miss 10 or more days.
“This is the model that our district has used for quite a while, and it functions very well for us,” Burke said.
Rock Hill also forgives a student’s first six absences, but allows them to make up an additional four, said spokesperson Lindsay Machak. Some students can avoid makeup time by applying for competency-based credit if they’ve documented every absence, have an average of 60 or higher in the course and score a 60 or higher on the final exam.
South Carolina students pay to earn back ‘seat time’
Rock Hill sessions function similar to study hall. Students of all grade levels congregate to work silently on anything they choose and earn back time spent in a school seat. A certified teacher is present to support students as needed, but there is no direct class instruction. Some students work on nothing at all.
“You’re really just trying to make up time as a student to get your grade,” said Sherry East, president of the South Carolina Education Association, a statewide teachers’ union. East used to monitor makeup sessions at Rock Hill High School.
Education leaders across the country said seat time is not an unusual requirement, but outside of South Carolina, it is not standard for schools to require payment from students to earn their seat time back.
Jean Cook, spokesperson for the Mississippi Department of Education, said districts can decide how students should make up missed school days. The Mississippi department is not aware of any districts that charge students to make up their work, Cook said.
Oregon requires a minimum number of instructional hours each year, according to Oregon Department of Education Spokesperson Marc Siegel. However, there is no seat time requirement, and students do not pay for makeup sessions.
And Arizona recently adopted a flexible model which allows students to count a range of opportunities such as remote instruction, college courses and mastery-based learning toward attendance hours in lieu of time spent in high school classrooms, according to Sean Ross, executive director of the Arizona State Board of Education. The state previously used a traditional seat time model like South Carolina.
“I have never, ever heard of a school charging (for makeup work),” Ross said. “That wouldn’t fly in Arizona.”
East said she is partially an advocate for South Carolina’s “tough love” approach. Students must understand the importance of attendance if they’ll ever be workforce ready, she said. Sessions also give educators an opportunity to make extra money.
But the policies can be too rigid, East said. Whereas home-bound instruction exists for students who miss school for medical reasons, few other exceptions exist.
“There’s got to be a happy medium of, how do you promote good attendance policies without failing kids?” East said. “There need to be attendance policies in place, but there needs to be some exceptions if there’s a death in the family or things like that. Nothing gets you out of this attendance stuff.”
Not all South Carolina districts use a paid makeup session model.
Clover School District includes flex time throughout the day when students can choose what they want to work on, including makeup schoolwork. Students can also take online modules that align with specific classes they’ve missed.
These options focus more on addressing learning gaps than making up lost time, said Rod Ruth, Clover’s chief student services and secondary education officer.
“We don’t charge anything in Clover School District as it relates to attendance,” Ruth said. “There’s so much variance in districts that I wouldn’t want to say there’s a better way, right way, any of those kinds of things. You just need to look at the needs of your particular district and make decisions based on those needs.”
South Carolina parents divided on attendance policy
Just as attendance policies have no consensus among districts, parents have varied opinions.
Cody Sherrin, whose son attends Rock Hill High School, said he didn’t think making students sit at school until 8 p.m. at night was the best approach, especially for those who were legitimately sick. The district does not waive makeup time for students who were sick.
Sherrin interrupted his workday to transport his son to the session.
“I think it’s ridiculous. There’s other ways they could do this,” Sherrin said. “Excused is excused for a reason … This is a punishment, just makeup work for actually being sick. He had norovirus. What, you want him to come to school?”
Crystal Dover, whose daughter has to attend four sessions at Rock Hill High School, sees the makeup time as a positive so her daughter doesn’t have to worry about repeating an entire course over summer school. The sessions are also a form of accountability, Dover said.
“I think it’s really good for the students that have parents that aren’t always on top of things,” Dover said.
Spokespeople for Fort Mill and Rock Hill said the districts work with families experiencing financial hardship on a case by case basis.
“We do have a lot of support for families in need for things like this,” said Rock Hill’s Machak. “We understand that our families have needs, and we as a school system work to serve every student regardless of household income.”
This story was originally published January 23, 2025 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Home sick from school? In some South Carolina districts, missed days could cost money."
