With the November 10.7.7 update, instructors will now be able to exempt students from Content items, meaning they will not be affected by dates under Content, Calendar, Course Schedule, or the Updates widget. Exemptions are already available within the Grades tool.
This will allow an instructor to exempt a student from an activity associated with a date, preventing the student from receiving reminders, or being marked “late” on that Content item, or seeing reminders in the various tools connected by date.