Aliso Niguel High School attendance staff takes on a demanding job to help students achieve success. They get multiple different types of calls throughout the day and students constantly coming up to the window.
Debbie Fiorentino, Cindy Leish and Teresa Bowman comedically describe the different types of calls they deal with on a day to day basis.
A type of call they may receive is a person running late: “Call #9: We are running 10 minutes late this morning. It’s my fault. I do not want my student to be marked tardy.”
Their response to such a call would be, “We are so sorry to hear this but unfortunately, attendance cannot excuse this type of tardy.”
Another call they may get from an annoyed parent is, “Call #193: Where is my son? Why is he not in the car right now? I’ve been waiting for over 15 minutes. I called first thing in the morning to inform the school that my student needed to leave at 1:45 P.M. for a dental appointment. ” They kindly say, “It is your student’s responsibility to pick up his off campus pass before school, during passing period or at lunch. Your student did not do that. We will do our best to get the call slip to your student right away.”
The attendance staff love what they do and enjoy talking and interacting with students in a different way.
“It’s a place of positivity and we are doing our best to get students to and from class on time and take care of any attendance matter,” says Cindy Leish.
Just like all staff members at Aliso Niguel, they want to see each student excel. One of the best ways students do great is simply showing up to school everyday.
The attendance staff also mentions how it can be frustrating and overwhelming at times when they get a lot of calls that they have to answer and attend to. There are three very hard working women in attendance that manage 3,000 students. At times, they wish they have more staff to divide the workload and relieve stress, but their outstanding communication skills and tight friendships help make the work bearable.
Debbie Fiorentino has been working for Aliso Niguel High School for the past 22 years.
She says, with her experience, “The attendance office is probably the busiest office.”
They are constantly dealing with lines of students picking up passes and asking questions while also dealing with calls from parents.
Debbie adds, “We keep track of the kids too, we want to keep them on campus.”
They want to focus on welcoming kids and making a good environment so they enjoy coming to school.
These staff are an important part of Aliso Niguel and their work that they do should not be overlooked but instead appreciated. Even on difficult days, they persevere and still treat students with high respect and kindness making everyone’s day better.
