MCPS has no idea what it's doing when it comes to chronic absenteeism

[Anonymous]

Today's BOE Business Meeting was one for the books. Damon Monteleone and Steven Neff should not continue to have jobs after this. Niki Hazel should have been better prepared to address the grading/attendance connection than she was.

Julie Yang, Grace Rivera-Oven, Sami Saeed, Brenda Wolff and Lynne Harris all completely eviscerated Damon and Steven Neff with their questions.

Damon and Steven tried to claim they're "making a dent" in chronic absenteeism because they eked out a 2% decrease year over year. Grace and Julie said the chronic absenteeism numbers make them sick. They're right.

Kudos to the board for a strong performance today. The question is, will Dr. Felder use this meeting to force the system to get serious about tackling chronic absenteeism and to implement policies with teeth in them?

[Anonymous]

I thought it was funny that even Yang and Silvestre said their own teens would often not attend classes when there was a sub there.

[Anonymous]

My kid is constantly marked absent when they are at school. I stopped bothering to email banditry to fix it.

[Anonymous]

Read first part of thread's title and think the remaining portion should read...comes to most things.

[Anonymous]

For those who don't want to stomach the video testiomny, My MC Media reported on a portion of the meeting: https://www.mymcmedia.org/student-absenteeism-drops-2-7-but-still-more-to-do/

hronic absenteeism among students at Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) dropped 2.7% when compared to this time during the last school year, officials said during Thursday’s Board of Education business meeting.

“We have made a dent,” said Damon Monteleone, associate superintendent. “This is very much a work in progress. There is still more to do.”

Attendance in kindergarten through middle school has dropped. However, chronic absenteeism among high school students rose from 28.97% last school year to the current 30.02%.

Student Member of the Board Sami Saeed said high school students have the mindset that nothing is going to happen if they don’t go to school. The policy is “one without any teeth,” he said.

[Anonymous]

They should make schools more engaging if they want kids to attend. Forcing it with punitive measures is a bad look. If your service is not very useful to students and parents, of course they won't use it as much. I don't see how chronic absenteeism per se is a problem at all. It's just a symptom of schools not being that fun or educational.

[Anonymous]

Every single thing in school is not suppose to be fun. Mental discipline means students have to deal with boring without cussing their teachers out or drawing swastikas on the desks. Teachers should not have to sing and dance to get your attention. They should also have the support and trust of their colleagues that they won't be fired if they are labeled as "boring". We have to volunteer thousands of hours for our credential. The harrassment has to end!

[Anonymous]

This is school- not six flags. The teachers and staff are not their to entertain you.

Hey DCUM- what steps can/should MCPS implement? Fail the kid? Get CPS involved if a kid misses too much class? At some point, there needs to be some real consequences….

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is school- not six flags. The teachers and staff are not their to entertain you.

Hey DCUM- what steps can/should MCPS implement? Fail the kid? Get CPS involved if a kid misses too much class? At some point, there needs to be some real consequences….

*there (oops!)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Every single thing in school is not suppose to be fun. Mental discipline means students have to deal with boring without cussing their teachers out or drawing swastikas on the desks. Teachers should not have to sing and dance to get your attention. They should also have the support and trust of their colleagues that they won't be fired if they are labeled as "boring". We have to volunteer thousands of hours for our credential. The harrassment has to end!

No one is defending swastikas and cussing out teachers.

This issue at hand is simply not showing up. I strongly disagree that teachers shouldn't have to earn attention in any way. If you are super boring and your class is useless OF COURSE students won't show up as much. No excuses for cussing/disruption/swastikas. But just skipping a boring and useless class is natural and acceptable response to it being boring and useless.

[Anonymous]

Yeah. I don't care anymore. Attendance taking is crap: my kids have been marked absent when they where in school, and not marked absent when I had pulled them out for doctor's appointments. Usually it's whenever there's a sub, they cannot seem to take attendance correctly.

I'm perfectly ready to believe that some kids are never in school.

But that's not a problem schools should be expected to resolve. Deeper societal problems like poverty, single parent households, violence, spill over into schools, not the reverse. You cannot ask school administrators for things they cannot give: they can't be therapists, security officers, and social workers in addition to being teachers!

MCPS has plenty things wrong with it, but I don't fault it for some students' chronic absenteeism.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every single thing in school is not suppose to be fun. Mental discipline means students have to deal with boring without cussing their teachers out or drawing swastikas on the desks. Teachers should not have to sing and dance to get your attention. They should also have the support and trust of their colleagues that they won't be fired if they are labeled as "boring". We have to volunteer thousands of hours for our credential. The harrassment has to end!

No one is defending swastikas and cussing out teachers.

This issue at hand is simply not showing up. I strongly disagree that teachers shouldn't have to earn attention in any way. If you are super boring and your class is useless OF COURSE students won't show up as much. No excuses for cussing/disruption/swastikas. But just skipping a boring and useless class is natural and acceptable response to it being boring and useless.

Boring =/= useless

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is school- not six flags. The teachers and staff are not their to entertain you.

Hey DCUM- what steps can/should MCPS implement? Fail the kid? Get CPS involved if a kid misses too much class? At some point, there needs to be some real consequences….

This is my kids life, not your prison. My kid is not there to bump up your attendance metrics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every single thing in school is not suppose to be fun. Mental discipline means students have to deal with boring without cussing their teachers out or drawing swastikas on the desks. Teachers should not have to sing and dance to get your attention. They should also have the support and trust of their colleagues that they won't be fired if they are labeled as "boring". We have to volunteer thousands of hours for our credential. The harrassment has to end!

No one is defending swastikas and cussing out teachers.

This issue at hand is simply not showing up. I strongly disagree that teachers shouldn't have to earn attention in any way. If you are super boring and your class is useless OF COURSE students won't show up as much. No excuses for cussing/disruption/swastikas. But just skipping a boring and useless class is natural and acceptable response to it being boring and useless.

Boring =/= useless

These are not the same, but too many classes are both.

[Anonymous]

For a lot of kids, anything other than video games and social media is “boring.” Teachers can’t compete with the dopamine rush from those. Not sure how some of these kids will make it in the real world.