Crowd-sourcing the attendance policy - making it work within current regs

[Anonymous]

I've been thinking a lot about the DCPS policy on unexcused absences. As far as I can tell, the policy allows for flexibility on a per school basis: "A-2102 ABSENCES

A-2102.1 Any absence, including an absence from any portion of the day, without a
valid excuse shall be presumed to be an unexcused absence.

A-2102.2 An educational institution shall define categories of valid excuses for an absence, which shall include the following: (illness, death, judicial proceeding, religious holiday, school closing, medical reason, DCPS transport failure, or Emergency Circumstances."

The policy analyst in me says that there are key phrases in the regulation: "educational institution" and "shall define." Basically, the regulation says that the reasons listed above must be included, but it doesn't say that those are the only valid reasons. In addition, "educational institution" is defined as "a school in the District of Columbia Public Schools system, a public charter school, an independent, private school, parochial school, or a private instructor." So basically each school gets to set its own policy.

I don't see individual schools defining their own policies (that is a can of worms), but what if we provided some parameters for defining "categories of valid excuses" that schools could use in addition to those defined in the regulation? These could be added to the written policies and procedures and defined up front for all schools.

Here's a stab at a valid excuse: "a valid excuse shall include absences for educational or enrichment purposes when a plan is worked out in advance for the student to participate in a home schooling program including daily lessons and homework. Parents or guardians shall be responsible for working with the student's teachers to obtain lesson plans and homework assignments for the absence period"

What say ye, DCUM? How would you edit or further refine?

[Anonymous]

The way you have written that language it leaves it open for a parent to take a child out of school for months with little to know follow up.

[Anonymous]

here's the problem: you want a policy that allows you to take Larla on vacation to France, or to a violin/fencing/chess competition. DCPS and charters want a policy that avoids you murdering your child (Banita Jacks) or giving her to a murderer (Relisha Rudd).

Also, most teachers don't want to put together packets of all assignments a week in advance just because families are planning to be absent, and most principals don't want to be in the position of determining which vacations are "for educational or enrichment purposes." Can a kid learn about physics on the roller coasters at Disneyland? Marine biology on the beach at St. Croix? History of the civil rights movement at grandma's house in North Carolina? Sure. But some parents are going to be better at writing up the proposal than others, none of it's on the CAS anyway, and school staff have better things to do.

Instead of worrying so much about the attendance rules, it seems easier to just
a) not take your kid on vacation too much while school is in session
b) if you have a kid who is really at a pre-professional level at something, homeschool or go private. If Larla is really the next Venus Williams or Yo-Yo Ma, you'll find a scholarship.

[Anonymous]

And I'm not terribly interested in my child's teacher needing to spend a lot of extra time keeping your absent-by-choice child up to speed.

[Anonymous]

My kid's not in dcps yet. What's the repercussion for unexcuse absences?

[Anonymous]

11:22 nailed it.

There is also a c) option, which is to do whatever it is that you already have planned and take the lumps that come with having however many unexcused absences you accrue.

It's a pain in the ass for everyone else, especially your children's teachers and the other students in their classes, but I've found that people in these circumstances are going to do what they're going to do regardless.

I know of a student who misses a few days every year to attend a sporting event and the family takes their unexcused absences and makes sure to have exemplary attendance the rest of the year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid's not in dcps yet. What's the repercussion for unexcuse absences?

if your child is at a charter it can be grounds for being expelled or not eligible to re-enroll.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid's not in dcps yet. What's the repercussion for unexcuse absences?

if your child is at a charter it can be grounds for being expelled or not eligible to re-enroll.

and in all schools, if you rack up enough absences you can be referred to CFSA. They will either substantiate the report of educational neglect (or, if their investigation uncovers it, other abuse/neglect) and offer you services (sometimes with the child in the house, or in serious cases the kid is removed and placed with relatives or in foster care) or find that there was no evidence of abuse and neglect and close their investigation.

A lot of DCUM families don't understand that they are the extreme outliers in DC public schools. 22% of kids in DC live under the poverty level (for a mom and kid, that's under $15,730 a year) and even more are just above that level. Most kids in DC get their health care from public sources like Medicaid or Medicare. DC is going to design its policies around what they want for the majority of kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid's not in dcps yet. What's the repercussion for unexcuse absences?

if your child is at a charter it can be grounds for being expelled or not eligible to re-enroll.

And like how many are we talking? Or is it a certain number in a row?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid's not in dcps yet. What's the repercussion for unexcuse absences?

if your child is at a charter it can be grounds for being expelled or not eligible to re-enroll.

And like how many are we talking? Or is it a certain number in a row?

charters may get to set their own rules on this.

Here are DC's general attendance rules: http://www.dcregs.dc.gov/Gateway/ChapterHome.aspx?ChapterNumber=5-A21 (referral to CFSA comes after 10 unexcused absences during a single school year for kids aged 5-13; for kids age 14-17, the referral is to the Office of the Attorney General and it comes after 15 unexcused).

for out of bounds DCPS: http://dcps.dc.gov/DCPS/help#11

[Anonymous]

OP here. I'm actually not planning on taking little Larla and Karla and Marla out of school anytime soon. But, I am someone who likes to be creative and see if things can be made more workable whilst following the regulations.

Someone recently said on here that MoCo celebrates their piano prodigies and spelling bee champs and supports their extracurricular enrichment activities that may take them out of school. I would like to see this type of support in DC for true enrichment activities.

It is sad to see that DC's best and brightest (as I assumed folks on these boards were) are in reality incapable of creative thinking and constructive engagement. Really? Your only solution is that I should move little Larla to private school if her penchant for the tuba turns into real talent and she's suddenly invited to play at the Met? But little Larla loves her DCPS and would sorely miss her friends. So she would rather give up her tuba and spend her life in mediocrity rather than switching schools. Is this really the only option that DCUM can come up with? How sad.

And, lest someone bring up Relisha Rudd again, note that her mom was gaming the system. Relisha had too many unexcused absences and got the warning letter, so Relisha's mom had her friend at DC General pen excuse notes on DC General stationary. Yes, the same friend who ended up being suspected of abducting her. So the problem was, the absences WERE excused.

My point is, you can have rules up the wazoo and folks will choose to ignore them or game them for their own benefit, and all the rules in the world won't stop them (rules against preferential contracting abound in DC, yet contracting scandals persist). Why not allow parents who actually want to follow the rules the ability to do so by providing some well thought-out parameters for them to follow?

C'mon DC, you're better than this.

[Anonymous]

If your kid turns out to be a tuba prodigy, you can take her to the Met. You can pull her out of school as an unexcused absence. If you get too many of those you get a visit from CFSA, where you show the program and video from the Tuba Prodigy Recital and unless they see other evidence of abuse or neglect, they non-substantiate the case and go away. So I don't really think the policy needs changing.

[Anonymous]

And yet people with a piano prodigy ended up switching to private because they felt harassed by the letters and visits from the truant officers. And, why should it have to be unexcused? The policy as is allows for principal discretion. I'm just trying to define some parameters for discretion so the principals will feel less exposed. Let's find a policy that would allow absences of this kind to be excused, like a nice normal school system would do.