California Education Code 48205: Excused Absences and Makeup Work

California Education Code 48205 sets out every reason a student can miss school with an excused absence, and it guarantees that students with excused absences can make up all missed work for full credit. The statute applies to the state’s compulsory attendance requirement for children ages 6 through 18 and covers health needs, family emergencies, civic duties, military family situations, religious observances, and certain approved personal reasons.¹

Health and Medical Absences

A student’s own illness is excused, and the statute explicitly covers absences taken for mental or behavioral health reasons. Quarantine ordered by a county or city health officer is excused for the length of the quarantine. Time at medical, dental, optometry, or chiropractic appointments also counts, and the statute puts no cap on how many such appointments qualify.¹

A student who is a custodial parent may miss school to care for their own sick child or take that child to an appointment. For this category alone, the school cannot require a doctor’s note.

Bereavement After a Family Death

When an immediate family member dies, a student may take up to five days per incident to attend services and grieve. Immediate family means a parent or guardian, sibling, grandparent, or any other relative living in the household. A 2024 amendment extended the definition to include anyone the parent or guardian considers in such close association with the student as to be considered immediate family.¹

That same amendment added up to three more excused days after a family death for grief-related needs: accessing a victim services organization, receiving grief counseling, or taking safety-planning steps like temporary relocation. Anything beyond those three days for these purposes is left to the school administrator’s discretion.

Military Family Absences

A student whose immediate family member is on active duty in the uniformed services may be excused to spend time with that service member when they have been called to duty, are on leave from deployment, or have just returned. Under California Education Code 49701, the deployment window runs from one month before the service member leaves on orders through six months after their return. The school district superintendent sets how many days to grant.²

Civic Duties

A student old enough to serve on a jury is excused for the time required, and a student serving on a precinct board for an election is excused for that day. These absences do not require the advance written approval that some other categories do.¹

Religious Observances and Retreats

Missing school for a religious holiday or ceremony is treated as a “justifiable personal reason,” which means the parent must submit a written request and the principal or a designee must approve it before the absence. Without that approval, the absence is unexcused. Religious retreats are covered too, but the statute caps them at one school day per semester.¹

Justifiable Personal Reasons

This is the catch-all category. Every absence claimed under it requires a written parental request and advance approval from the principal or a designee, applying uniform standards set by the district’s governing board. The statute gives a non-exhaustive list of qualifying reasons:

A required court appearance
Attending a funeral service (separate from the five-day bereavement rule for immediate family)
A job-related conference or employment interview
A conference on the legislative or judicial process offered by a nonprofit organization

Because the list is open-ended, administrators can approve other reasons that fit their district’s standards. What is not flexible is the process: without the written request and prior approval, an otherwise valid reason turns into an unexcused absence.¹

Making Up Missed Schoolwork

Any student with an excused absence under Section 48205 has the right to complete all assignments and tests missed, and to receive full credit for satisfactory completion within a reasonable timeframe. The teacher decides which makeup work is “reasonably equivalent to, but not necessarily identical to” what the class did during the absence. A different version of a test is allowed; refusing to let the student make it up at all is not. Grade penalties tied to an excused absence, without a makeup opportunity, can be challenged through the school administration.¹

What Happens When Absences Are Not Excused

Any absence outside Section 48205’s categories is unexcused, and California’s truancy threshold is low. A student with three unexcused full-day absences in a school year, or who is absent or tardy without a valid excuse for more than 30 minutes on three occasions, is classified as truant.³ A student reported truant three or more times in one year becomes a “habitual truant,” which triggers a formal intervention process starting with a parent conference and potentially leading to a School Attendance Review Board or county probation referral.⁴

Parents convicted of failing to compel their child’s attendance face escalating fines:

Up to $100 for a first conviction
Up to $250 for a second
Up to $500 for a third or later conviction where the refusal was willful

A court may substitute a parent education and counseling program for the fine, and can also order the parent to enroll or re-enroll the child immediately and prove it. Ignoring that court order is civil contempt, carrying a fine of up to $1,000.⁵

How to Report an Absence

Parents or guardians must notify the school of the reason for any absence, usually by phone call or written note. Notification timeframes vary by district, so checking the local attendance policy before a planned absence is worth doing. Absences that need advance approval, particularly anything under the justifiable personal reasons category, should be arranged well ahead of the date rather than explained afterward.

The statute itself does not require a doctor’s note for general illness, though districts may adopt stricter verification for students with frequent health absences. The one explicit documentation limit written into 48205 is that schools cannot demand a doctor’s note when a custodial parent misses school to care for their own sick child.¹

1
California Legislative Information. California Education Code EDC 48205
2
California Legislative Information. California Education Code EDC 49701
3
California Legislative Information. California Education Code EDC 48260
4
California Department of Education. Truancy – Attendance Improvement
5
California Legislative Information. California Education Code EDC 48293