The consequences of tardiness should be noted on your syllabus. There should also be a note to contact instructor beforehand if the student knows they will be late or miss a class. Metro State definitely needs a college-wide policy on attendance. The student must withdraw or take an incomplete. Attendance is mandatory.
Attendance is defined as being an active person in class, talking, etc.
If a student misses two classes, they need to write an extra essay, if a student misses more than two classes, their grade will be dropped by one letter grade. It is okay to miss two classes. Having a policy statement prevents students from taking two courses at the same time. Clearly, Metro State instructors were not concerned with approaching a bell curve grade distribution. They preferred criterion-based measures that, for many of them, included competency demonstrations rather than testing, and included plenty of opportunity for revision.