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Attendance at the Aiken County Career & Technology Center is monitored on a regular basis. If your child is absent, please make sure to send a note the next day so the absence can be coded properly. In order to be successful in all ACCTC programs it is important for your child to attend school regularly and make up any missing assignments as soon as possible.

If you have any questions regarding attendance, please call our office at 803-593-7300 and speak to Ms. Karen Brennan, ACCTC Secretary.

Policy from the Code of Conduct

High School Attendance Policy
1. Students are required to bring written documentation for absences within 5 days from the day they
return from an absence.
2. The principal shall approve or disapprove absences in excess of 10 (5 for semester classes). A
medical note or other documentation will be required after a student accumulates 10 absences (5 for
semester) in order to assist the principal in making that decision.
3. Absences with no documentation are automatically considered unlawful.
4. Students who accumulate 3 consecutive unlawful absences or a total of 5 unlawful absences will be
considered truant. Parents/guardians and students (12 years and older) will be contacted to develop a
written Attendance Intervention Plan. Failure to participate and/or adhere to the plan will result in a
referral to the District Attendance Office and/or Family Court.

Lawful Absence(s)

1. The student is ill and attendance at the school would endanger the student’s health or others.
2. There is a death in the student’s immediate family. Three absences per occurrence.
3. There is a serious illness in the student’s immediate family. Absences of this nature should not
exceed three per year.
4. Recognized religious holiday of the student’s faith.
5. Emergencies and/or extreme hardships at the discretion of the principal.

Unlawful Absence(s)

1. The student is willfully absent from school without the knowledge of his/her parents.
2. The student is absent without acceptable reason with the knowledge of his/her parents.
3. The student is absent and fails to turn in an acceptable note within 5 days of the student’s return from
an illness.
4. The student accumulates more than 10 absences and a medical note is not received.

Truancy

1. Truant: A child from age five until age seventeen years meets the definition of a truant when the
child has three consecutive unlawful absences or a total of five unlawful absences.
2. Habitual Truant: A child, ages 12 to 17, who accumulates two or more additional unlawful absences
after an intervention plan has been developed by the school, parent/guardian and the child.
3. Chronic Truant: A child, ages 12 to 17, who has been through the intervention process and who has
reached the level of habitual truant, has been referred to Family Court and placed under a school
attendance order, and continues to accumulate unlawful absences.
Section 59-65-10A Responsibility of parent or guardian. All parents or guardians shall require their
children or wards to attend regularly a public or private school or kindergarten of this State which has
been approved by the State Board of Education, a member school of the South Carolina Independent
Schools’ Association, a member school of the South Carolina Association of Christian Schools, or some
similar organization, or a parochial, denominational, or church-related school, or other programs which
have been approved by the State Board of Education from the school year in which the child or ward is
five years of age on or before September first until child or ward attains his seventeenth birthday or
graduates from high school.
Section 59-65-20 of the Code of Laws of South Carolina allows a penalty for failure to enroll or
cause a child to attend school. The law reads as follows: Any parent or guardian who neglects to
enroll his child or ward or refuses to make such child or ward attend school shall, upon conviction, be
fined not more than FIFTY DOLLARS ($50.00) or be imprisoned not more than THIRTY days; each
day’s absence shall constitute a separate offense; provided the court may in its discretion suspend the
sentence of anyone convicted of the provisions of the article.