Chronic Absenteeism

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At least in my neck of the woods, we said for 1.5 years that going to school (as in physically going to a building) wasn't necessary, so it's unsurprising that people took that to heart.

I agree that this is part of it, plus sickness, whether kids are sick more often or there is more awareness about keeping sick kids home. Regardless, the messaging addressing both issues simultaneously minimized the importance of in-person education and emphasized the need to keep sick kids home. Is it any wonder that people internalized those messages?

The thing about keeping sick kids home for longer is an issue. People are now keeping a kid with a cold home for two weeks until every last sniffle is gone. You can't do that and have anything resembling a normal school year. And it's especially damaging because it's younger kids who tend to circulate these cold viruses more often -- there are kids in K and 1st who have cold symptoms for most of the year because they are still in the phase of just catching everything and building immunity. As they get older, they won't get so many colds.

But K and 1st are critical years for literacy. Missing two weeks of K to an illness might be the difference between finishing the year with basic reading skills or not. It's a big deal.

But I don't know if this is even counting toward the chronic absentee numbers, since the absences for illness are excused in our district (I do think you need a doctors note after three consecutive days out, but it's not hard to get a doctors note saying a kid has still has a cold or an ear infection or something). So this might actually be a problem on top of chronic absenteeism with unexcused absences, where parents are just keeping kids home for no reason. Which is frightening.

Parents should be working with their children at home. Two weeks is no big deal and not going to hurt anything.

You can "should" parents all you want. They aren't.

If we had chronic absenteeism and rising test scores, declining juvenile crime, and improving behavior in schools, I feel like people would care a lot less about the chronic absenteeism. The same kids who aren't in school are also not learning anything and engaging in criminal activity, and when they ARE in schools, they are disrupting classrooms and making it harder for teachers to teach the kids who show up every day.

[Anonymous]

In high school, the flipped classroom fad is making things worse. Previously, a student needed to be at school or else they'd miss that day's lecture. But now, instruction is a collection of videos posted online and class is just for doing homework. A student can do homework anywhere so it lessens the need for them to be at school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In high school, the flipped classroom fad is making things worse. Previously, a student needed to be at school or else they'd miss that day's lecture. But now, instruction is a collection of videos posted online and class is just for doing homework. A student can do homework anywhere so it lessens the need for them to be at school.

100%

School administrators need to take ownership of the problem. They have redesigned education so there is less incentive to be present.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In high school, the flipped classroom fad is making things worse. Previously, a student needed to be at school or else they'd miss that day's lecture. But now, instruction is a collection of videos posted online and class is just for doing homework. A student can do homework anywhere so it lessens the need for them to be at school.

This! My two kids are in high school. So much is posted online. If my kids know that a substitute is going to be there and they are just going to sit there in a loud classroom they think it is more productive to stay home, finish the assignment in 15 minutes and then have time to work in something else. One if my kids is really social so he doesn’t like to miss but my older one who started 9th grade online during COVID never has really felt connected to his high school.

So after COVID my kids think attending school is optional when there are so many resources online. Last year my son had an AP class that was being taught by a long term sub who didn’t know the material, then by a new teacher who wasn’t familiar with AP tests and didn’t really teach much. He preferred to watch YouTube videos and read study guides made by some really amazing teachers. So he barely attended that class and got a 5. His friends who never missed got 1’s, 2’s and 3’s.

I think it used to be struggling students who missed a lot but now there are kids who do well in school who also miss a lot.

[Anonymous]

A ton of parents at my children's school talk openly about letting their kids take mental health days off from school, no questions asked.

I try not to judge because I don't know what goes on in other people's lives. I think schools should find a way for students to make up missed instruction in a way that counts as partial attendance. Like, if they do some assigned work at home and turn it in, then only count it as 0.5 of an absence. There's a huge difference between not going to school and not keeping up with the work, and not going to school but still keeping up with the work. That needs to be recognized.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In high school, the flipped classroom fad is making things worse. Previously, a student needed to be at school or else they'd miss that day's lecture. But now, instruction is a collection of videos posted online and class is just for doing homework. A student can do homework anywhere so it lessens the need for them to be at school.

This! My two kids are in high school. So much is posted online. If my kids know that a substitute is going to be there and they are just going to sit there in a loud classroom they think it is more productive to stay home, finish the assignment in 15 minutes and then have time to work in something else. One if my kids is really social so he doesn’t like to miss but my older one who started 9th grade online during COVID never has really felt connected to his high school.

So after COVID my kids think attending school is optional when there are so many resources online. Last year my son had an AP class that was being taught by a long term sub who didn’t know the material, then by a new teacher who wasn’t familiar with AP tests and didn’t really teach much. He preferred to watch YouTube videos and read study guides made by some really amazing teachers. So he barely attended that class and got a 5. His friends who never missed got 1’s, 2’s and 3’s.

I think it used to be struggling students who missed a lot but now there are kids who do well in school who also miss a lot.

This is a parenting issue. Regardless of the situation he needs to go to class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In high school, the flipped classroom fad is making things worse. Previously, a student needed to be at school or else they'd miss that day's lecture. But now, instruction is a collection of videos posted online and class is just for doing homework. A student can do homework anywhere so it lessens the need for them to be at school.

This! My two kids are in high school. So much is posted online. If my kids know that a substitute is going to be there and they are just going to sit there in a loud classroom they think it is more productive to stay home, finish the assignment in 15 minutes and then have time to work in something else. One if my kids is really social so he doesn’t like to miss but my older one who started 9th grade online during COVID never has really felt connected to his high school.

So after COVID my kids think attending school is optional when there are so many resources online. Last year my son had an AP class that was being taught by a long term sub who didn’t know the material, then by a new teacher who wasn’t familiar with AP tests and didn’t really teach much. He preferred to watch YouTube videos and read study guides made by some really amazing teachers. So he barely attended that class and got a 5. His friends who never missed got 1’s, 2’s and 3’s.

I think it used to be struggling students who missed a lot but now there are kids who do well in school who also miss a lot.

This is a parenting issue. Regardless of the situation he needs to go to class.

NP here, why? If the goal is to learn the material and a student is able to do that better elsewhere, why waste their time sitting in a classroom with an underprepared teacher?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In high school, the flipped classroom fad is making things worse. Previously, a student needed to be at school or else they'd miss that day's lecture. But now, instruction is a collection of videos posted online and class is just for doing homework. A student can do homework anywhere so it lessens the need for them to be at school.

This! My two kids are in high school. So much is posted online. If my kids know that a substitute is going to be there and they are just going to sit there in a loud classroom they think it is more productive to stay home, finish the assignment in 15 minutes and then have time to work in something else. One if my kids is really social so he doesn’t like to miss but my older one who started 9th grade online during COVID never has really felt connected to his high school.

So after COVID my kids think attending school is optional when there are so many resources online. Last year my son had an AP class that was being taught by a long term sub who didn’t know the material, then by a new teacher who wasn’t familiar with AP tests and didn’t really teach much. He preferred to watch YouTube videos and read study guides made by some really amazing teachers. So he barely attended that class and got a 5. His friends who never missed got 1’s, 2’s and 3’s.

I think it used to be struggling students who missed a lot but now there are kids who do well in school who also miss a lot.

This is a parenting issue. Regardless of the situation he needs to go to class.

Why does he need to go to class? His strategy has worked and he is going to a top university. My son kept asking me to stay home and I kept giving the standard answers. But he kept explaining that strategically it made more sense NOT to go to some classes because he learned MORE by not going. He started saying he was sick and I had to leave for work. He would show me when I got home how much work he had done. There are so many kids like him that used to love school because they are high achievers that after not being allowed to go to school for a year during COVID, they now feel like it’s fine to selectively go. He has a part-time job and has never missed a day. So he is a responsible kid.

I just asked him if he was going to go to school everyday this week and next week. He said he looked at the AP testing schedule. He has a class where the majority of the students are taking an AP test he took last year, so they are not going to do anything that morning in any of his classes so he prefers to stay home and study for an AP test he is taking in the coming days.

[Anonymous]

Yeah I’ve heard a lot with the older students, HS age, that the disruptive student behaviors are getting to the point where it’s more productive for kids to learn the material at home. The quality of the instruction is bad for a large number of reasons. Would going to school in person with high quality instruction be better, of course it would. But a lot of kids feel like HS classes where the teachers are just focused on “classroom management” are a waste of time.

For ES, those are the kids whose parents have absorbed the harshest of the Covid messaging. The current 3rd graders were all virtual for K. The current 4th graders had K cut short and all virtual 1st. You’d have to get to 5th grade to get a grade that had a single normal non-K year before Covid. The younger kids (2nd and below) have only ever known the, STAY HOME IF YOU’RE SICK!!!!11 messaging. I will say this school year it’s started to change more to “come to school or else!!!!1” like it used to be. But between parents keeping kids home for more minor illnesses, and parents using the school year to travel … there’s a lot of absences. My 2nd grader had 3 kids in his class of 25 who missed MORE THAN a full school week due to travel and many more than that who took a partial week or an extra long weekend or what have you. We did too so I can’t throw stones.

[Anonymous]

While HS classes are supposed to be used for doing homework, the rooms are loud with kids talking (supposedly to discuss homework but in reality anything but), using their phones, etc. It's hard for kids to concentrate and get work done. As a PP said, it is more efficient for them to study somewhere quiet; spending time in a loud class with no instruction diminishes performance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In high school, the flipped classroom fad is making things worse. Previously, a student needed to be at school or else they'd miss that day's lecture. But now, instruction is a collection of videos posted online and class is just for doing homework. A student can do homework anywhere so it lessens the need for them to be at school.

This! My two kids are in high school. So much is posted online. If my kids know that a substitute is going to be there and they are just going to sit there in a loud classroom they think it is more productive to stay home, finish the assignment in 15 minutes and then have time to work in something else. One if my kids is really social so he doesn’t like to miss but my older one who started 9th grade online during COVID never has really felt connected to his high school.

So after COVID my kids think attending school is optional when there are so many resources online. Last year my son had an AP class that was being taught by a long term sub who didn’t know the material, then by a new teacher who wasn’t familiar with AP tests and didn’t really teach much. He preferred to watch YouTube videos and read study guides made by some really amazing teachers. So he barely attended that class and got a 5. His friends who never missed got 1’s, 2’s and 3’s.

I think it used to be struggling students who missed a lot but now there are kids who do well in school who also miss a lot.

This is a parenting issue. Regardless of the situation he needs to go to class.

Why does he need to go to class? His strategy has worked and he is going to a top university. My son kept asking me to stay home and I kept giving the standard answers. But he kept explaining that strategically it made more sense NOT to go to some classes because he learned MORE by not going. He started saying he was sick and I had to leave for work. He would show me when I got home how much work he had done. There are so many kids like him that used to love school because they are high achievers that after not being allowed to go to school for a year during COVID, they now feel like it’s fine to selectively go. He has a part-time job and has never missed a day. So he is a responsible kid.

I just asked him if he was going to go to school everyday this week and next week. He said he looked at the AP testing schedule. He has a class where the majority of the students are taking an AP test he took last year, so they are not going to do anything that morning in any of his classes so he prefers to stay home and study for an AP test he is taking in the coming days.

Why do you think he needs to go to school? You are lucky they passed him given how he skipped so much school. This is a parenting issue. No, he's not a responsible kid.

[Anonymous]

I as a parent absorbed the message from teachers over covid that I, as a parent, was responsible for making sure my child was educated. I do that now. I used to be a stickler for attendance, but really, as long as the kid is doing well, I care less about them being in school. My area's strong bent that school is secondary to many other things kind of sunk in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In high school, the flipped classroom fad is making things worse. Previously, a student needed to be at school or else they'd miss that day's lecture. But now, instruction is a collection of videos posted online and class is just for doing homework. A student can do homework anywhere so it lessens the need for them to be at school.

This! My two kids are in high school. So much is posted online. If my kids know that a substitute is going to be there and they are just going to sit there in a loud classroom they think it is more productive to stay home, finish the assignment in 15 minutes and then have time to work in something else. One if my kids is really social so he doesn’t like to miss but my older one who started 9th grade online during COVID never has really felt connected to his high school.

So after COVID my kids think attending school is optional when there are so many resources online. Last year my son had an AP class that was being taught by a long term sub who didn’t know the material, then by a new teacher who wasn’t familiar with AP tests and didn’t really teach much. He preferred to watch YouTube videos and read study guides made by some really amazing teachers. So he barely attended that class and got a 5. His friends who never missed got 1’s, 2’s and 3’s.

I think it used to be struggling students who missed a lot but now there are kids who do well in school who also miss a lot.

This is a parenting issue. Regardless of the situation he needs to go to class.

Why does he need to go to class? His strategy has worked and he is going to a top university. My son kept asking me to stay home and I kept giving the standard answers. But he kept explaining that strategically it made more sense NOT to go to some classes because he learned MORE by not going. He started saying he was sick and I had to leave for work. He would show me when I got home how much work he had done. There are so many kids like him that used to love school because they are high achievers that after not being allowed to go to school for a year during COVID, they now feel like it’s fine to selectively go. He has a part-time job and has never missed a day. So he is a responsible kid.

I just asked him if he was going to go to school everyday this week and next week. He said he looked at the AP testing schedule. He has a class where the majority of the students are taking an AP test he took last year, so they are not going to do anything that morning in any of his classes so he prefers to stay home and study for an AP test he is taking in the coming days.

Why do you think he needs to go to school? You are lucky they passed him given how he skipped so much school. This is a parenting issue. No, he's not a responsible kid.

PP is parenting their kid, and apparently the kid is successful. You aren't listening that school is garbage is many circumstances, and many kids do better off not being there as much.

Remember the "my kid is thriving in virtual!" people? This is the result.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At least in my neck of the woods, we said for 1.5 years that going to school (as in physically going to a building) wasn't necessary, so it's unsurprising that people took that to heart.

I agree that this is part of it, plus sickness, whether kids are sick more often or there is more awareness about keeping sick kids home. Regardless, the messaging addressing both issues simultaneously minimized the importance of in-person education and emphasized the need to keep sick kids home. Is it any wonder that people internalized those messages?

The thing about keeping sick kids home for longer is an issue. People are now keeping a kid with a cold home for two weeks until every last sniffle is gone. You can't do that and have anything resembling a normal school year. And it's especially damaging because it's younger kids who tend to circulate these cold viruses more often -- there are kids in K and 1st who have cold symptoms for most of the year because they are still in the phase of just catching everything and building immunity. As they get older, they won't get so many colds.

But K and 1st are critical years for literacy. Missing two weeks of K to an illness might be the difference between finishing the year with basic reading skills or not. It's a big deal.

But I don't know if this is even counting toward the chronic absentee numbers, since the absences for illness are excused in our district (I do think you need a doctors note after three consecutive days out, but it's not hard to get a doctors note saying a kid has still has a cold or an ear infection or something). So this might actually be a problem on top of chronic absenteeism with unexcused absences, where parents are just keeping kids home for no reason. Which is frightening.

Parents should be working with their children at home. Two weeks is no big deal and not going to hurt anything.

You can "should" parents all you want. They aren't.

If we had chronic absenteeism and rising test scores, declining juvenile crime, and improving behavior in schools, I feel like people would care a lot less about the chronic absenteeism. The same kids who aren't in school are also not learning anything and engaging in criminal activity, and when they ARE in schools, they are disrupting classrooms and making it harder for teachers to teach the kids who show up every day.

This is true, and it's also a reason why some higher performing students are now staying home more often, especially at the secondary level. They're tech savvy enough to know how to access the material that's online using whatever platform their district has, and they can submit everything online. I don't really blame them for not wanting to be in a classroom trying to learn alongside peers who are being disruptive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In high school, the flipped classroom fad is making things worse. Previously, a student needed to be at school or else they'd miss that day's lecture. But now, instruction is a collection of videos posted online and class is just for doing homework. A student can do homework anywhere so it lessens the need for them to be at school.

This! My two kids are in high school. So much is posted online. If my kids know that a substitute is going to be there and they are just going to sit there in a loud classroom they think it is more productive to stay home, finish the assignment in 15 minutes and then have time to work in something else. One if my kids is really social so he doesn’t like to miss but my older one who started 9th grade online during COVID never has really felt connected to his high school.

So after COVID my kids think attending school is optional when there are so many resources online. Last year my son had an AP class that was being taught by a long term sub who didn’t know the material, then by a new teacher who wasn’t familiar with AP tests and didn’t really teach much. He preferred to watch YouTube videos and read study guides made by some really amazing teachers. So he barely attended that class and got a 5. His friends who never missed got 1’s, 2’s and 3’s.

I think it used to be struggling students who missed a lot but now there are kids who do well in school who also miss a lot.

This is a parenting issue. Regardless of the situation he needs to go to class.

Why? Sounds like this high-achieving kid found a way to maximize his time and academic performance. And I'm sure plenty of high-SES kids see their parents WFH too. Technology has made it possible for people to stay home and learn/work. The only issue I see in that post is that the school system couldn't find a suitable teacher for certain classes.