Students who are absent from school but present online for more than 10 days will be required to switch over to Cohort D/full remote learning. 

This announcement came from an email from assistant principals to the students and parents of their respective grades on Dec. 8.

“If your child was scheduled to be in school with their hybrid cohort, was absent from school, and accessed their class online, they will be coded Absent but Present Online (APO),” assistant principals wrote. “Remote learning for a longer duration (beyond 10 days) will necessitate a student being moved to Cohort D/full remote learning.”

The decision comes after a week of many students choosing to participate in school as APO learners instead of coming to school on their assigned cohort days.

“There are a lot of students who do not feel comfortable with going inside the school during the pandemic,” Ellery Vishno ’23 said, “and I think that it’ll be a relief for students and also teachers in a way.”

The email also provides circumstances in which students should choose to be APO and when they should be going to school in person. 

“If a student is scheduled to be in either Cohort A or Cohort B, the expectation is that they attend school in person,” the email stated. “This new attendance code was not created for students who want to take a day off from in-person learning, who want to sleep in, or who are looking to take an assessment online instead of in person.”