Flexible Attendance & Deadline Policy

The Flexible Attendance & Deadline Policy is an academic accommodation program that was created to aid working students in balancing their work and school obligations. The program acknowledges that academic requirements may occasionally clash with work related responsibilities such as shift changes, overtime, and even mandatory meetings. The policy offers flexibility while retaining academic standards instead of punishing students for events out of their control.

The program reduces the required face to face attendance to 80% of the semester by allowing qualified students to attend up to 20% of their classes online. When work related conflicts happen, students may ask for a 24-48 hour extension for assignments, tests, quizzes, and projects as long as they provide the necessary paperwork. Instructors are privately informed of students who are eligible for the program in order to speed up the process and guarantee that the authorized accommodations are applied consistently while safeguarding the students privacy.

While working students are the programs main target audience, other students may also benefit from similar accommodations when necessary due to uncontrollable circumstances such as medical issues, transportation issues, or family obligations. For all students, this results in a more welcoming and encouraging environment.

Because this expands on the current academic system rather than requiring new facilities or financial investments, the policy is also cost effective. THe majority of accommodations include using the online learning platforms that are already in use at many universities and colleges making administrative changes and establishing communication between teachers and students. Because of this, colleges can put the program into place with little additional expense while giving their students support.