Select your correct Acadmic Counselor below to submit a Class Absence Form:

Ms. Francine Hazy

Ms. Anitra Chambers

Ms. Brieanna Casey

TAMS Student Handbook Attendance Policies and Procedures

Students are REQUIRED to attend every class, lab, recitation, and other scheduled class-related meetings, regardless of a professor’s attendance policies. Research studies have shown that attending class is vital to a student’s learning and academic success. Attending class, however, is not a student’s only obligation; TAMS students MUST be active participants in their learning, from taking notes while reading and during class, asking questions in class, and remaining attentive to anything a professor and/or other students are discussing. Students who create or participate in class disruptions—including but not limited to sleeping in class; whispering, talking, or messaging students unrelated to class information; surfing the Internet; and/or, working on assignments for another class—show a blatant disrespect for their professors and classmates and are subject to disciplinary sanctions, including dismissal from the Academy. To ensure that students attend classes, TAMS personnel will periodically take attendance in various classes, and a student who is late for class—defined as one second after the time a class is scheduled to begin—will be counted absent.

Students who are or will be absent/tardy from any lecture, lab, recitation, or TAMS event MUST

  1. Submit a class absence form to notify the Academic Counselor;
  2. Follow-up the class absence form with an email to the Academic Counselor. If the student also missed an assignment, quiz, exam, or another major grade, wait for the Academic Counselor’s response before taking further action;
  3. Once the Academic Counselor has responded, OR if no major grades will be/were missed, notify professor(s) and lab instructor(s) in line with each course’s attendance policies specified in the syllabus.

TAMS will never interfere in a professor’s decision regarding a student’s consequences for absenteeism; thus, when TAMS Academics “forgives” a student’s absence(s), this applies to Academic points ONLY and does NOT overrule a professor’s decision. Students should NEVER tell a professor that “TAMS excused me to miss class,” and students who deceive their professor(s) will incur severe consequences. To reiterate, regardless of a professor’s policy, TAMS students are NOT permitted to miss an exam or ask a professor for a make-up exam for non-medical reasons, especially NOT due to a student’s desire to participate in a competition.

Additionally, regardless of a professor’s policy or determination of a student’s class absence(s), TAMS reserves the right to assign Academic points if a student’s absence(s) does not meet TAMS’s criteria. Students must NOT miss classes/labs/etc for “routine” or “non-emergency” appointments.

Any attempt to deceive TAMS or my professors regarding my class attendance, including “lying by omission,” will be considered an act of dishonesty under UNT’s Code of Student Conduct, Student Academic Integrity, Policy 06.003: “falsification of any information (including attendance) for the purpose of receiving points in a course.”

Finally, a student who fails to comply with TAMS’s class attendance policy will be dismissed from TAMS even before the student accumulates 100 Academic points for two reasons: (1) the student’s unwillingness to adhere to TAMS policy and (2) Texas truancy laws that require a student to attend school and classes.

Consequences for Absenteeism

Students receive academic points for each class absence that is not covered by a written note from a non-family-member medical doctor. A phone call or email from a parent/guardian is insufficient as an “excuse” for a student’s absence(s)

FIVE (5) academic points are assigned for each class absence, and an additional FIVE (5) Academic points for failure to submit a detailed Class Absence Form within 8 hours of the absence (or the first absence of the day).

A student who accumulates >10 academic points in a single semester due to absenteeism is prohibited from enrolling in an elective course during the next semester, including summer. This “elective” provision begins anew each semester—although a student’s academic points do not decrease—so students who improve their attendance record the next semester may earn the opportunity to take an elective the next semester.

TAMS grants ONE (1) “free” absence per semester, which applies to missing a SINGLE class, lab, or recitation, but attends all the others that day. In order to use the “free” absence allowance, a student MUST submit a class absence form on time. This provision does NOT apply to a student who misses a full day of classes/labs/recitations; in that case, a student must have a medical excuse to avoid earning academic points for each class/lab/recitation absence.