After District 203 posted an announcement this morning stating that “attendance today is optional”, many students who were in school asked parents to call them out of class. Combined with the number of students who could not get to school due to street and weather conditions, attendance rates were lower than usual.

Some attribute such low attendance to the wording of the district announcement. Principal Bill Wiesbrook believes the announcement may have sent the wrong message to students.

“When that announcement came out, high school kids were already in the building,” said Wiesbrook. “The high school kids… interpreted that message to mean ‘We don’t have to be here,’ so quite a few kids decided they were just going to leave school.”

Senior Chris Li asked his parent to call him out of class after hearing that school was optional.

“Since nobody was going to go to class, we weren’t going to learn anything,” senior Chris Li said. “I didn’t want to waste an hour [at school].”

The attendance office has not finalized the number of students present at school today. However, Wiesbrook notes that there may be consequences if the attendance rate is too low.

“In order for a day to count, schools have to have a minimum of 50% of students in attendance,” Wiesbrook said.

Without a majority of students in school, the district may need to add on an additional school day at the end of the year.

Although all District 203 schools were open today, the junior high and high schools dismissed students early at 1 and 12pm, respectively.