Absenteeism-reduction measures at Dranesville ES feel like misplaced student pressure

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if the school nurse there (a health department employee) has been consulted on any of these measures. Doubtful.

FCPS has pretty clearly said attendance policies for illness are back to pre-pandemic. The fact that some people on DCUM cannot get used to that idea doesn't change it.

Precovid kids still aren’t supposed to come to school when sick, and some children are going to miss due to chronic illness or other issues. Here are all the current reasons your child should stay home: severe coughing, pink eye, diarrhea, vomiting, fever, rash/fever, strep.

Agree this is misplaced. My children have had low level gunk since the beginning of September and we haven’t missed a day, but we would if we had any of the above symptoms.

Disagree. Yes, kids get sick and should stay home and yes, kids are getting sick more and for longer after covid.

But the big problem is parents who have decided that school is optional and have passed that idea on to their kids. It's not a low SES idea either, it's across all SES. It's all over this forum, everywhere. And it harms kids to miss school.

So how will kids who missed an entire year and a half of school going to be compensated for the harm they suffered? Any kid who was school age during the pandemic years has ZERO obligation to adhere to the policies of a system that DENIED them education (and according to you, caused them harm!)

You act like every single kid at every single school in every single state in the entire country (and world) wasn't faced with the same pandemic that caused learning loss.

Students in southern states attended in person classes during the pandemic and did not have the learning losses associated with remote school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if the school nurse there (a health department employee) has been consulted on any of these measures. Doubtful.

FCPS has pretty clearly said attendance policies for illness are back to pre-pandemic. The fact that some people on DCUM cannot get used to that idea doesn't change it.

Precovid kids still aren’t supposed to come to school when sick, and some children are going to miss due to chronic illness or other issues. Here are all the current reasons your child should stay home: severe coughing, pink eye, diarrhea, vomiting, fever, rash/fever, strep.

Agree this is misplaced. My children have had low level gunk since the beginning of September and we haven’t missed a day, but we would if we had any of the above symptoms.

Disagree. Yes, kids get sick and should stay home and yes, kids are getting sick more and for longer after covid.

But the big problem is parents who have decided that school is optional and have passed that idea on to their kids. It's not a low SES idea either, it's across all SES. It's all over this forum, everywhere. And it harms kids to miss school.

So how will kids who missed an entire year and a half of school going to be compensated for the harm they suffered? Any kid who was school age during the pandemic years has ZERO obligation to adhere to the policies of a system that DENIED them education (and according to you, caused them harm!)

You act like every single kid at every single school in every single state in the entire country (and world) wasn't faced with the same pandemic that caused learning loss.

Students in southern states attended in person classes during the pandemic and did not have the learning losses associated with remote school.

Do you know any students in Southern states? They had classes that would close for a week or two due to covid, or switch to online. They had teachers missing school (or dying) due to covid, classes combined occasionally or frequently. They had family members sick or dying from covid. Those kids didn't skip the pandemic. They experienced it differently, and maybe (hopefully) in a less damaging way than other kids. But they still went through it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if the school nurse there (a health department employee) has been consulted on any of these measures. Doubtful.

FCPS has pretty clearly said attendance policies for illness are back to pre-pandemic. The fact that some people on DCUM cannot get used to that idea doesn't change it.

Precovid kids still aren’t supposed to come to school when sick, and some children are going to miss due to chronic illness or other issues. Here are all the current reasons your child should stay home: severe coughing, pink eye, diarrhea, vomiting, fever, rash/fever, strep.

Agree this is misplaced. My children have had low level gunk since the beginning of September and we haven’t missed a day, but we would if we had any of the above symptoms.

Disagree. Yes, kids get sick and should stay home and yes, kids are getting sick more and for longer after covid.

But the big problem is parents who have decided that school is optional and have passed that idea on to their kids. It's not a low SES idea either, it's across all SES. It's all over this forum, everywhere. And it harms kids to miss school.

So how will kids who missed an entire year and a half of school going to be compensated for the harm they suffered? Any kid who was school age during the pandemic years has ZERO obligation to adhere to the policies of a system that DENIED them education (and according to you, caused them harm!)

You act like every single kid at every single school in every single state in the entire country (and world) wasn't faced with the same pandemic that caused learning loss.

Students in southern states attended in person classes during the pandemic and did not have the learning losses associated with remote school.

Students in Southern States were already behind students in FCPS and remain behind students in FCPS. They also dealt with a fair amount of disruption as schools closed for 2-3 weeks due to COVID out breaks and switching from in-person to online to in-person. And the death toll was hire in the Southern States so kids might have been in school put they are ar more likely to know people who died from COVID. Some of them ended up with new Teachers because their Teachers died from COVID.

ie Southern Schools were disrupted. They might have caught up a little because FCPS was shut down but they are still behind.

And the private schools in our area were not smooth sailing. Many of the schools offered a hybrid option, which made the classroom weird because kids were online watching the class and participating. The recesses and other activities were very different because of social distancing rules, it was not a normal year. Better then online school but not great.

[Anonymous]

You'd think since there was a pandemic, that FCPS would boost the allowed number of absences so kids can be vaccinated, recover from the fatigue from being vaccinated, or recover from having COVID, but no, it's still only 18 days.

Easy way to solve the problem-don't tie accreditation to attendance. You'd think they would have enough data on why kids are absent to realize in some situations, calling parents on the phone doesn't help chronically ill kids show up more often. And if there weren't school shootings and frequent lock down drills (that scare kids), kids would feel safe at school enough to attend more regularly.

[Anonymous]

The state sets the standard for what’s considered chronically absent, not FCPS. Otherwise FCPS would definitely change their definition since many schools are in danger of losing accreditation over it.

[Anonymous]

Bumping to add this re: Dranesville ES Principal Lauded for Efforts to Reduce Absenteeism:

Dranesville School Sees Decline in Absenteeism — Chronic absenteeism at Dranesville Elementary School has dropped from over 20% during the 2022-2023 school year to 7% last year, thanks to “a renewed focus on connecting with every student.” Principal Jamie Gadley says students have started to hold themselves accountable. [WTOP]

[Anonymous]

Attendance-based rewards are terrible. It leads to kids coming to school sick.

I graduated with a guy in 2000 who received a special award at the senior awards assembly because he had not missed one day of school his entire K-12 career. His brother received the same award the next year when he was a senior as well.

There is no way that he never came to school sick. I remember plenty of times when he was coughing and sneezing in our AP Chem class. There was even an incident during our 8th grade trip where he had to switch seats with someone in the back of the coach bus so he'd be closer to the bathroom because he was "carsick" but the carsickness lasted the entire trip to the amusement park, while at the park, and back. He wasn't a walker or drop-off kid who wasn't used to riding on a bus, either. He road the bus daily and was even on the tennis team and took the rinky-dink, rickety team bus to games.

[Anonymous]

I have a friend who is a school secretary and the problem isn't so much a day here and there but the big chunks. UMC people going to Europe during the school year just because, and immigrant families going home for Grandpa's funeral and staying for a month. It isn't sustainable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a friend who is a school secretary and the problem isn't so much a day here and there but the big chunks. UMC people going to Europe during the school year just because, and immigrant families going home for Grandpa's funeral and staying for a month. It isn't sustainable.

It probably is sustainable for the kids. They will make up the work and be fine. It just isn’t sustainable for the absenteeism rate.

I think we are seeing the downsides of relying on data as measures of success. We have to be very specific about what we measure because sometimes things just don’t matter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a friend who is a school secretary and the problem isn't so much a day here and there but the big chunks. UMC people going to Europe during the school year just because, and immigrant families going home for Grandpa's funeral and staying for a month. It isn't sustainable.

It probably is sustainable for the kids. They will make up the work and be fine. It just isn’t sustainable for the absenteeism rate.

I think we are seeing the downsides of relying on data as measures of success. We have to be very specific about what we measure because sometimes things just don’t matter.

It actually isn’t sustainable. The kids leaving for a month or more are already academically behind. - teacher