“I got dropped out of one class this semester because I had to work the first day of class. I’m still trying to work out my schedule,” said undecided major Alejandro Mendez, a student at Cerritos College who, like many others, is juggling a job and pursuing an education at the same time.

“A student should be dropped after two days… But then again, that’s not fair to a lot of students that are there every day,” Mendez said.

Bill Farmer, vice president of academic affairs and assistant superintendent, appeared before the faculty senate Oct. 5 to explain regulations and policies when dropping a student from a class.

According to Farmer, Cerritos College must now drop students who are “no shows” on the first day, except in situations where there are extenuating circumstances (such as an accident or illness) and only if that student contacts the instructor before the first class meeting.

“Right now with the way things are with the UC system and the amount of students we’re getting here at Cerritos, it’s really hard to get classes so I can’t expect them to not drop students after the first day,” Mendez said.

Title five is a regulation that was adopted by the California Community College Chancellor’s Office as a guideline. Since the law’s definition is broad, it allows local policies to proceed for faculty to make decisions on what constitutes excessive absences and how long a student has to show up for the first class meeting.

“People that enroll should be there the first day. That gives other people a chance to get to class. People who actually want to be there, on time,” said Emily Encimas, undecided major.

Diana Devia, graphic design major, said, “It’s not fair that teachers drop a student the first day.

“Maybe they’re on vacations during the summer and they just have to miss the first day, then they just drop you.”

Additionally, students who are not “participating” in a course sufficiently by the census date also must be dropped from the class. The census date represents 20 percent into a course, so it may apply to all classes regardless of the number of weeks in the session.

Participating, according to Farmer, includes excused and unexcused absences, not academic progress.

Title five states that students may not be dropped when they reach 75 percent through the course or more.

Juan Lopez, undecided major, said he could understand both sides of the issue, declaring, “I guess I’m sort of half and half on that.

“Sometimes students can’t make it the first day, so dropping them would just make it much harder on them. They might even be good students too,” Lopez said.

Faculty is expected to explicitly state on their syllabus what constitutes “excessive absences.”

For online classes, Farmer said that instructors must drop “inactive” students, and that the teacher will need to define inactivity on their syllabus as well.

“I think it would be good for students to have a consistent policy so they know exactly what the rules are,” said Bryan Reece, dean of humanities and social sciences.

“For example, some faculty drop students if they’re 10 to 15 minutes late on the first day, some faculty don’t drop until the end of the class period, some faculty don’t drop until the end of the week,” Reece said.

Members of the faculty senate also expressed an interest in defining exactly how long a student has to make it to their first class before they must be dropped, citing students standing around the class as a safety issue.

Reece said, “There’s a lot of variation in our course offerings.

“[Adopting a policy will] be a challenge as they try to think through a common policy, but I don’t see it as an insurmountable challenge. I still think on the first day we need a consistent rule. I think when you’re dropping students it should be a consistent policy.”

However, other faculty senate members felt that flexibility is the best option for teachers on the first day.

Debra Moore, faculty senate president, leaned towards no policy, saying “I think I would like to entrust it to the individual instructors to use their best judgment about how to manage the class.”