Cy-Fair seniors fight for absence policy change

CYPRESS, Texas – Two Cypress Ranch High School seniors want to see the school district policy on final exams and absences changed after recent unforeseen circumstances caused one of the students final exam turmoil. 

Monique Diaz missed school on May 8 after she went to the hospital while trying to save her friend’s dog.

“I was trying to save a dog from getting run over, the dog didn’t make it because the car hit him,” explained 18-year-old Monique Diaz. “The car hit me on my foot, and I went to the ER to get my foot checked.”

The senior who plans on going to Blinn College and wants to study pre-med, said she was at the hospital on Monday and by the time she got out, it was too late to go to school.  She said she had an AP exam that day and she couldn’t ‘be late anyway.

"I saw Monique lose her exemptions, and it made me upset because I felt like she was trying to help my dog and she didn’t deserve it,” explained Benjamin Snyder, whose dog Jasper died in the accident.

Snyder, 17, who plans on attending A&M University in the fall to study pre-med, created an online petition for his friend.

“I felt that it was wrong for her to lose her exemptions; at the time I thought she lost all seven,” said Snyder.

Diaz lost three of her seven exemptions. The teens admitted they thought she lost all of them but said it’s about changing the policy.

“This petition is not just for my exemptions, it’s just to change the policy,” said Diaz. “ Doctor notes or funerals or stuff like that to count against you, because I feel like you can’t control that part of your life.”

The online petition has more than 15,000 signatures.

“I can understand where they’re coming from because sometimes kids might try and abuse that, but I feel like things like doctors' notes shows that they weren’t obviously trying to skip school,” Snyder said. “It’s more about trying to change the rule for the future because people lose their exemptions for a lot of reasons that I feel they shouldn’t, things like funerals are accidents or  misses they can’t control, I don’t think that should count against students because they didn’t choose to leave school.”



The Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District released the following statement:

“CFISD maintains a final exam exemption policy that takes into consideration attendance, conduct and grades in an effort to be fair to all students with varying attendance situations. The student in question did not lose the exemption due to one absence, the exemption was lost due to multiple absences on other occasions.”

Listed below is the current Cypress-Fairbanks ISD policy on exemptions and absences:

FALL AND SPRING SEMESTER EXAM EXEMPTIONS

All students in grades 9-12 shall have the opportunity to earn exemptions from fall and spring semester exams. Freshmen shall be allowed one exemption per semester; sophomores, two exemptions per semester; juniors, three exemptions per semester; and seniors, four exemptions during the fall semester and seven exemptions during the spring semester.

A Windfern High School senior may exempt all exams during the student’s final semester in high school regardless of the semester (fall, spring, mid-fall, or mid-spring).

These exemptions shall be based on attendance, conduct and grades for each semester. A student shall be exempt from an examination when he or she has a grade of A (90-100) or B (80-89) and has no more than three absences from that course in the semester.

Even when a student has earned an exemption, he or she may elect to take the exam. If a student chooses to exempt an exam, he/she may still attend school. If the student chooses not to attend school, he/she will be counted as absent. This absence will be reflected on the student’s report card.
No student shall be exempt from exams while owing fees or costs of textbooks.

ABSENCES
The following guidelines shall determine how various types of absences shall count for purposes of these exemption criteria:
1. Classes missed because of school-sponsored field trips and college days shall not count against a student. College days are limited to no more than two days per junior year and two days per senior year.
2. Class absences resulting from a meeting initiated by an administrator or counselor shall not count against the student.
3. Classes missed because a student chooses to visit a clinic or a counselor, without being required to do so, shall count as an absence.