School absences? Does this go to far?

[cm8]

Our district has an automated system. If the high schoolers aren't in class..you get an automated call for each period of class they miss. Hard for them to get around it. They then have an automated call by the dean later in the evening letting you know your child wasn't in school that day.

Ours does as well

 

[we3peas]

All I can say is homeschool. I get to be in charge of my child's learning. Frequently we travel and she has learned so much not sitting in a desk in a building. When she was elementary age we spent one day a week at Disney, SeaWorld or the Science Center. That is called field trips.

 

[Whipperwhirl]

I pulled my kids out of school two years ago for two weeks to go to Disney and I will be doing it again this fall - let them go ahead and try and stop me. They are my children - no one elses. The kind of balked at it when I told them in 2009 - but I just said - well - we are doing it - I will unregister them if I have to. Do you need a letter from my attorney? Oh - No Mrs Whipperwhirl - we will see little whipperwhirl in a few weeks - have a nice trip! In my State we are not breaking any laws - know your state laws. Your school makes up all these rules and thinks they are Gods - well their "rules" have to match the state laws or the dont mean jack.

Kids are only kids once - My child is not going to be traumatized for life because she spent two weeks of 6th grade with her parents - give me a break! Now when they are in High school - I dont think we are going to want to pull them out for two weeks - the stakes are much higher - colleges are watching transcripts and such - who cares in 6th, 7th, even 8th grade.

 

[Tnbob]

Do they actully call you Mrs. Whipperwhirl?

not to mention little Whipperwhirl?

 

[Just Beachy]

I spent a week with my parents when I was 15. At the time I felt I was traumatized for life.

 

[Mrs. Sojourner]

It is definitely about the bottom line. My Junior year in HS our Principal pulled me into the office and lectured me for missing school so much. I tried to explain my family situation ;he didn't care, he just kept lecturing. I point blank asked him if he knew my grades. He didn't even have my file. I had all A's... It was all about the $.

Reason # 368 why I homeschool.

 

[MMFanCipher]

We did this in 2007. We gave the school plenty of notice and met with all of the teachers well before we went. We plan on doing it again in 2012. We will do all of the above again. If the school gives us grieve we have and can homeschool our kids.

 

[Whipperwhirl]

Do they actully call you Mrs. Whipperwhirl?

not to mention little Whipperwhirl?

you betcha

 

[Whipperwhirl]

It is definitely about the bottom line. My Junior year in HS our Principal pulled me into the office and lectured me for missing school so much. I tried to explain my family situation ;he didn't care, he just kept lecturing. I point blank asked him if he knew my grades. He didn't even have my file. I had all A's... It was all about the $.

Reason # 368 why I homeschool.

I am just wondering - I have a sister who homeschools her five children - do all of you have your reasons for doing so listed and catogorized in numerical order - ready to pop out in any conversation like that? My sister does it frequently. Im not being judgemental - I often think of doing it with my own kids so we can spend more time at the Fort.

 

[blondinkaya]

Here in Georgia, any absence other than sickness, one day before a parent's deployment, and a day to attend a funeral are unexcused. More than five days requires a truancy contract signed by the parent. Any more unexcused absences would require family court to become involved. And, for unexcused absences, it's up to each teacher whether or not to let the student make up work, tests, etc.

We pulled the boys (now in 2nd and 10th grade) out of school the week after Thanksgiving last school year. Yep, had to sign the truancy contract. We had a blast! Neither boy missed a beat.

This year, I really don't want to deal with the truancy issue, so we're going during a week where the boys will only miss three days of school. My 2nd grader's teacher knows and is excited for him. My oldest son's school/teachers do not know. I'm going to call him in sick each of those three days, before we head to the parks in the morning.

I homeschooled my oldest for five years (when my youngest was born through the time he started Kindergarten, before I went back to work) and really miss being able to go on vacation whenever it was convenient to dh (he's military and can't take time off every time he wants it). I can understand truancy being an issue for those parents who have no idea where their kids are or who don't care, but for a close family to be able to spend family time together, it really irritates me that we're all being lumped into the same group.

 

[*NikkiBell*]

It really is about the money. The more kids that are in the school..the more state and federal assistance the district will receive. If the kids aren't filling the seats..they get less. It's about the bottom line.

As someone who works in a public school district, I respectfully disagree on two points here. If a child is absent from school, that does not mean the district is receiving less funding. A plethora of items go into what the state gives a district and what the nation gives it. Having absent children does not necessarily fall into this equation. In many districts, if a child has ten unexcused absences in a row, he is unenrolled. At that point, the state/nation funding is already in place and cannot be taken away for that year. Therefore, it has nothing to do with money in the sense of this part of the argument.

Are there school administrators or districts that look at the bottom-line? Of course. Is it all of them? Maybe, maybe not. Do all teachers look at from this standpoint? A solid "definitely not." With that being said, I find it very surprising that people would question why school officials are demanding children actually attend and be IN the classroom.

Here..it's bodies in the seat. That's why they also have so called "half days" of school during the last week or so. The kids barely spend an hour in the building. I mean really..what is a child getting out of that one hour in the classroom. Especially the last two weeks in June. School doesn't end here untill at least June 25-27th here. The teachers aren't even teaching. Our NYS Regent exams are DONE. Yet they have the elementary kids come in anyway. They are told to bring video and board games with them. Seriously.. just to stretch out the year.

While my knowledge of New York schools isn't that great, I'm shocked to hear that children there are in school for an hour on half days. I have never heard of this before. In New Jersey, half days are about four hours. So they run the buses, bring staff in, etc. for just an hour? Something sounds off to me here. Are they taking field trips the rest of the day? Are they doing community service?

Each state has a required number of days children should be in school with many of them requiring a minimum of 180 days. I'm sorry to hear that what takes place after the regent exams is not to your liking. I would write a letter to the principal and then, if need be, share your thoughts at a Board of Education meeting. That is where you will affect change.

 

[auntie]

Kindergarden half days = 1 hr. and 15 min.

Grades 1- 5 half days = 2 hrs. and 15 min.

While I can only speak as to the hours in my own district, most around us follow suit.

You're certainly correct in that it hardly seems worth it to arrange transportation and bring the staff in for that. Yet..that's they way it's been done, and I've had kids in the district for 25 years. Personally, only living 7 houses from the school, it didn't bother me either way. The dates for the NYS Regents exams are not determined by the district. I'd say most of the kiddo's enjoy the time just playing games, but it does seem a waste of time. Especially when some families want to get a jump on a summer vacation but technically they'd be taking an "unexcused absence."

I've been to my share of Board of Ed. meetings...and honestly since I no longer have a dog in this race, as our youngest graduated high school in June,... I'm done.

 

[surfergrl31]

I am going through this paticular problem right now. I had orginally booked a trip when the children had days off from school, but when the snow storm hit these days are now to be make up days. In our district, if it is three straight days without a doctor's note you will have to go through a truancy hearing.

I understand that summer time is for vacations and don't agree that student should miss school because what is that going to teach them about holding down a job when there are no summer vacations. I'm trying to change my dates and work with the principal on this matter, but 7 year old has to have surgery this summer that will have a recovery time of 6-8 weeks. The way I look at it he can miss three days for vacation or 6-8 weeks of school for surgery. I think I'll take the 3 days.

 

[Mrs. Sojourner]

I am just wondering - I have a sister who homeschools her five children - do all of you have your reasons for doing so listed and catogorized in numerical order - ready to pop out in any conversation like that? My sister does it frequently. Im not being judgemental - I often think of doing it with my own kids so we can spend more time at the Fort.

No, I don't really number the reasons that I homeschool or have 238 reasons, it was in a somewhat joking manner. I've never actually met a homeschool family who have a list catogorized in numerical order why they homeschool.

 

[Becky2005]

While my knowledge of New York schools isn't that great, I'm shocked to hear that children there are in school for an hour on half days. I have never heard of this before. In New Jersey, half days are about four hours. So they run the buses, bring staff in, etc. for just an hour? Something sounds off to me here. Are they taking field trips the rest of the day? Are they doing community service?

I'm not in NY and the last day of school is a total joke here. YES...it is literally 1 hour long and they run the busses, have staff come in (I suspect they have a full day though).

The kids do NOTHING that last day for 1 hour. They have already cleaned their desks the few days before and basically for elementary school kids they won't give you your report card unless you show up that day (they will but you have to go pick it up after that time, etc...).

They have been getting a lot better, now the 1 hour is only for the grade school kids. It used to be all of them, my DD begged me in 8th grade to not have her go because she said it was such a waste of time, all they did was sign yearbooks if they hadn't done it the day before. Me being the stickler that I am and figured it was her last day, she should go. The next year in High School, I did allow her to skip it because I couldn't imagine what they would do for 1 hour since final exams had all been taken.

Now they basically say only the grade schoolers have to go for 1 hour, which is bogus but the *only* reason I can think of is so they can get $$ or count it as a day or something because who in their right mind even wants to be the teacher to deal with students that basically have no desire to be there more than normal, they have already passed their grade and really what are you going to do if they totally misbehave? The kids pretty much watch part of a movie, do sign yearbooks and they do have a clap-off/send off for the 5th graders (since that is the last year of elementary here).

I have never really been a fan of the 1 hour thing. I do know when my DD started, that 1 hour was used to clean out desks, etc... so that made more sense to me -- basically they were using that hour to just have everyone remove everything but when they started moving the clean out day to a couple days BEFORE it, then it didn't make any sense whatsoever to go for an hour.

Of course, I really think the tying the DL is an awful thing because a lot of time paperwork issues become a problem, my DD was out for 7 weeks with a medical excuse and even had a homebound tutor from the school that they knew ahead of time this was going to happen. I still got the "your child is missing way too much school" letter -- I called and went "HUH?" Of course, she is missing it...we set this up in advance. They told me to ignore it because it was just a "passed in the mail" -- OK I can ignore a letter because of the systems passing in the mail but can you imagine if your DL gets suspended because of that?