MCPS Announces New Attendance Plan and Policy on 8/22

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are kids allowed to have mental health days? I think that would come up more frequent now than ever. Also what’s wrong with being able to achieve high grades while skipping? Shouldn’t the counselor re-evaluate the student’s course work for being not challenging enough? I think many kids are bored with what’s being taught, and/or going to college isn’t their thing, why keep them in school as long as they are safe. It doesn’t apply to those who mess around on the street, but some kids are in school just because they aren’t the age of graduating.

I assure you the kids who are able to skip and still maintain high grades aren't the primary problem nor focus of the chronic absenteeism problem. Those kids are a minority. The majority of chronically absent kids are not meeting state-level benchmarks, much less not being challenged enough academically.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Automatically unenrolling kids is a great way to make the absentee rate look better.

It’s also a great way to discourage kids from bothering to come back to school.

The problem with your premise is the idea that kids have a choice on whether they have to go to school or not. They don't have a choice.

Unenrolling them, puts their parents on the hook to get them re-enrolled, or if not, potentially face legal implications for not enrolling their minor children in school.

[Anonymous]

I'm at the Q&A portion and they have yet to address kids skipping or leaving school. MCPS wants to blame the absenteeism issue solely on kids who have to watch younger siblings, suffer from the youth mental health crisis and are still "used to learning at home from the pandemic."

If they addressed the gigantic holes in their safety and security protocols that allow for students to skip rampantly, then they'd be admitting culpability for dropping the ball on their part, which MCPS is allergic to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At my high school we were told today there will be a lot more individual family outreach to get kids back in school.

We were also told, that any kids that don't show up for 10 days are going to unenrolled automatically. "must be" rather than can be". Staff are going to have more pressure to keep attendance accurate. Contact counselors after three days of absence.

+1

I know people this plan does nothing, but what folks don’t see is how terrible our data actually is. Teachers don’t take attendance consistently, administrators don’t consistently follow up with teachers who aren’t, counselors aren’t following up with families, and families play a game to turn in excuse notes or show up once in a while so they don’t get unenrolled. This first part of improving the situation is to actually use the existing system correctly and consistently. I see more places where individuals (teachers, counselors, admin) are going to be held accountable for correctly doing their part, which includes more follow up with families and students about why they are missing school.

Also, the state changed the unenroll timeframe from 15 days to 10 days, which helps with actual accountability for students and families. If they can’t be bothered to get to school, then after two weeks, it’s not the school’s problem.

[Anonymous]

… people *think* this …

[Anonymous]

Underlying all of this is that there is no way to punish weak parenting without hurting the child even more. You can't take money from parents, or send parents to jail, as punishment for weak parenting, and expect that to help the child. There aren't better environments just waiting to host the child.

Punitive arrangements are useless, unless they are deferred until children are 18 or 21.

Examples of potentially plausible programs:

* Welfare subsidies are $X, plus $Y bonus for students who attend school and submit academic work. This discourages pulling kids out of school to do labor or just hang out

* If a parent fails to put a child through 11 valid years of schooling before age 21, parent does weekends in prison or community service.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Underlying all of this is that there is no way to punish weak parenting without hurting the child even more. You can't take money from parents, or send parents to jail, as punishment for weak parenting, and expect that to help the child. There aren't better environments just waiting to host the child.

Punitive arrangements are useless, unless they are deferred until children are 18 or 21.

Examples of potentially plausible programs:

* Welfare subsidies are $X, plus $Y bonus for students who attend school and submit academic work. This discourages pulling kids out of school to do labor or just hang out

* If a parent fails to put a child through 11 valid years of schooling before age 21, parent does weekends in prison or community service.

Many of the parents in question already receive welfare benefits, so I don't think that works.

To your point: Some of the underlying problems are character, moral and ethical problems that the school district nor the county government can help.

[Anonymous]

I am very frustrated by this and by what we (as staff) discussed at school today about this. What we were told was: kids are absent because they don’t want to come to school; they don’t want to come to school because they don’t feel supported culturally; so we as a staff need more anti-bias training.

I am so sick of this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't know what's going on. MCPSTV disabled the live stream for the press conference on their YouTube channel and they were supposed to go live with the press conference at 10:45 am.

The press are clearly there, but no news is coming out:

Was this a study of Beidleman? He always bragged about our math scores

"Plan includes
data driven foundation and system wide attendance promotion campaign to "raise importance of regular school attendance" "

So, more chatter, no action.

How much money did they spend to come up with this highly anticipated 4-page, large-character, empty action plan?

This is a scandal.

I think they thought if they called it an action plan we'd think it was an action plan, even though it doesn't actually include any meaningful actions in it.

Well, this is at about the same level as the superintendent's PhD thesis:
https://parentscoalitionmc.blogspot.com/2021/06/monifa-b-mcknights-doctor-of-education.html

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am very frustrated by this and by what we (as staff) discussed at school today about this. What we were told was: kids are absent because they don’t want to come to school; they don’t want to come to school because they don’t feel supported culturally; so we as a staff need more anti-bias training.

I am so sick of this.

Yes. I was unsettled by this clear theme.

You can tell by Damon's remarks that him and Monifa think parents and teachers who are demanding student accountability are overvaluing and overstating the issue.

I feel so sorry for MCPS educators. It really does feel like MCPS leadership puts their opinions and feedback last.

[Anonymous]

Here's the communication propaganda Chris Cram and MCPS promised us that's supposed to solve the chronic absenteeism problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am very frustrated by this and by what we (as staff) discussed at school today about this. What we were told was: kids are absent because they don’t want to come to school; they don’t want to come to school because they don’t feel supported culturally; so we as a staff need more anti-bias training.

I am so sick of this.

That’s ridiculous. I’m a lifelong Democrat and this is making me kind of hate left-wing educational politics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they want kids to attend, then they need to add a consequence for being absent! Kids can be absent as often as they want and still earn high grades (or passing grades if that’s what the child is trying for). There’s no motivation to attend.

Many chronically absent children have no choice in the matter. Parents do not send them and they are too young to just walk out the door. Or their parents keep them home intentionally to care for sick younger siblings.

I’m not going to give adult consequences to an 11 year old child.

The question is why these kids are missing school. If their younger siblings are sick, they might be sick too. Sick kids should not be at school. Mine will not go to school sick.

[Anonymous]

I can think of at least 2 students last year that missed a month of school to visit family out of the country. One was in Africa and the other in South America. So would MCPS now unenroll them?

Also, what happens once these kids are unenrolled? I’m thinking of the many moms of MS boys that say “I can’t control him” and their son misses 65 days of school. There is no phone call or home visit that will get that kid to school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can think of at least 2 students last year that missed a month of school to visit family out of the country. One was in Africa and the other in South America. So would MCPS now unenroll them?

Also, what happens once these kids are unenrolled? I’m thinking of the many moms of MS boys that say “I can’t control him” and their son misses 65 days of school. There is no phone call or home visit that will get that kid to school.

For the first instance: yes. There are truancy laws and they need to be enforced.