Mr. Andrew D’Ambrosio, dean of student life, introduced several changes to detention and sign-out procedures during the first all-school meeting after Winter Break.
The school currently uses Veracross to track student attendance in classes and leave requests, but is transitioning to Orah, an attendance and communications system designed specifically for boarding schools.
Mr. D’Ambrosio said, “With Veracross, the Deans Office has had to create several workaround systems to compensate for the system’s deficits. Orah’s customizability and automated features will improve the student and family experience. Faculty will also benefit from its many features.”
For example, Orah will provide confirmation to parents that absence requests have been received, thus eliminating anxiety over whether or not requests have gone through. “Signing out through the Orah app to the local area couldn’t be easier, though it will take some time for students to build the correct habits,” said Mr. D’Ambrosio.
The transition to Orah will take place gradually over the course of the second semester. The first phase will take place during the third marking period and will include student training, collaboration with families, and faculty integration.
The second phase, full implementation, is planned for the fourth marking period. Until that time, students and families will continue using Veracross for all absence and leave requests. Mr. D’Ambrosio said, “We understand that this represents a significant change for our community, but we believe it is an essential step forward to enhance the health and safety of our students.”
The school is also reverting to older detention policies. In the first semester, the school introduced a flexible policy that allowed students to serve evening detention in their rooms if they missed regular detention time on Wednesday mornings. The goal of this policy was to help students avoid an endless cycle of absences and detentions.
However, the school is returning to previous practice in the second semester due to abuse of the new policy by students. Mr. D’Ambrosio said, “Unfortunately, students took advantage of the flexibility in the new policy in ways that were actually against the rules. There was no time to meet with faculty and hear student input [on a replacement policy] before the start of semester two, so I decided it would be best to revert to the old policy as a placeholder.”
In an all-school email following Tuesday’s announcement, Mr. D’ambrosio wrote that detention will once again be held on Wednesday mornings. Students who fail to arrive to detention on time or do not attend will receive extra detentions and accumulate additional unexcused absences. The Dean’s Office will assign extra detention times to students who earn numerous detentions.
