Attendance, Tardiness & Early Release
Attendance, Tardiness, & Early Releases Regular attendance at school is vital to your child’s educational development. School attendance laws in the State of Maryland require that children attend school regularly; students absent 10% or more of the total number of enrollment days are considered to have chronic absenteeism.
In accordance with CCPS Students’ Rights & Responsibilities Attendance Policy, schools will monitor student attendance, collaborate with families experiencing attendance concerns, provide resources and develop plans as appropriate. Students who are chronically absent will be considered for retention. When students are absent, you will receive an automated phone call to alert you to the absence.
Lawful absences: If a student is absent due to illness, or another legitimate reason, they must bring a written note signed by the parent or legal guardian, or a doctor’s note if they have been seen. The note must be sent in within three days of the absence.
Make-Up Work Requirements: It is the responsibility of all students, whether the absence is lawful or unlawful, to obtain and to complete the work provided by each teacher. All make-up work will be graded in accordance with the regular classroom grading policy if it is completed within the established timeline. Generally, students will have one day to make up work for each day of absence. Teachers are not expected to provide schoolwork before absences.
Tardiness (Late Arrival) & Early Release & Parent Pick-up All students arriving after the school start time MUST BE SIGNED IN by an adult in the school office. Students arriving after the start of the school day will be considered tardy. Students leaving before the end of the school day will be identified as having an early release. Please note: Unless it is a school or system wide emergency, parents must provide written permission for anyone to pick up their child from school. A written note is required each time your child is picked up by someone other than the parent or legal guardian, even if the person is listed on the Emergency Form.
Birthdays at School
Student birthdays are very exciting and will be recognized by the classroom teachers and staff. We kindly request that, due to increased allergies, students with diabetes and other health concerns, non-food items such as pencils, stickers, trinkets, etc. be sent in to share with the class rather than cupcakes or other snacks. Please communicate with the teacher in advance if you are planning on sending items in to celebrate your child’s birthday.
Visitors at Lunch!
Lunch is a social time for all students to interact and share social time with their classmates. Our schools have limited space to accommodate adult guests for lunch with students. If you should wish to have lunch with your student, please inform the front office in advance. We ask that parent/guardians be an approved volunteer and only share food with your own child. Unfortunately, we cannot accommodate guests for lunch on special event days or early/late arrivals/dismissal.
Tuesday Folders
Each Tuesday your student will bring home a folder with all their weekly work or assignments. In addition, any newsletters or CCPS information that is printed will be included. Please review and remove all the information in the folder and return it every Wednesday. If you have additional questions don't hesitate to reach out to your teacher.
Bus and Car rider Information
If you plan to pick up your child EVERY day from school and they will Not be riding the bus this school year, please complete the car rider form below and return it to the office.
If you need to pick up your child early for an appointment, we ask that you please do so PRIOR to 3:00pm as the office gets very busy just before dismissal.
Please note when you need another adult/friend or family member to pick up your child you must submit a note in writing to the front office in advance. We do not accept requests by phone. The person picking up MUST provide an ID.
If you need additional information related to someone other than guardian picking up your child don't hesitate to reach out to the front office or administration.
PBIS (Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports)
Mutual is a PBIS school! Exciting things to come this school year with PBIS so be on the lookout for more information.
What is PBIS?
PBIS stands for Positive behavioral interventions and supports. Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) is a proactive system approach to help parents and school staff create and maintain a safe, supportive, learning environment, promote positive life skills and behaviors so that all children can succeed in school. PBIS is an approach that helps schools proactively teach students about expected behavior and provides supports to encourage positive choices.
Mutual’s PBIS at a glance
Mutual Elementary has a school motto which define our expectations for students, they are…
· SHOW kindness
· WORD hard
· STAY safe
PBIS is a schoolwide approach with interventions and supports that recognize students for meeting behavior expectations and following school rules. As one of our many approaches, we are going to focus on a character trait of the month. A different for each month character trait is selected and discussed through out the month as a part of character education. At the end of each month, teachers will nominate a student to be recognized as someone who showed to be a great example of the character trait.
Our character trait of the month, for October is Cooperation/Team
Work.
Teachers and staff will teach and have discussions on the trait throughout the month. please do so at home as well!
