MCPS Announces New Attendance Plan and Policy on 8/22

[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.

Then he and his mom will get locked up. Truancy charges are real.

A mom that says she can't control her adolescent son is not in control and as the adult in the equation, she has to be. If she's afraid of her own child or she has abdicated all power to a 13, 14 or 15 year old, then she's failed as a parent.

If dad is not in his life, call in an uncle, cousin, grandparent, neighbor, coach, pastor, SOMEBODY.

[Anonymous]

Interesting that they didn’t analyze the data based on kids with a chronic health condition

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Interesting that they didn’t analyze the data based on kids with a chronic health condition

You seriously think that’s having any meaningful impact on absenteeism?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Then he and his mom will get locked up. Truancy charges are real.

A mom that says she can't control her adolescent son is not in control and as the adult in the equation, she has to be. If she's afraid of her own child or she has abdicated all power to a 13, 14 or 15 year old, then she's failed as a parent.

If dad is not in his life, call in an uncle, cousin, grandparent, neighbor, coach, pastor, SOMEBODY.

Locked up????????? Even sexual predators do not get locked up in moco.

[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.

Do you think cash welfare still exists? Let’s start there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

What "welfare benefits" do you think the parents are getting, specifically?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

What "welfare benefits" do you think the parents are getting, specifically?

Housing, food and likely medical insurance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting that they didn’t analyze the data based on kids with a chronic health condition

You seriously think that’s having any meaningful impact on absenteeism?

My kid misses 30-40 fays of school each year on average due to their medical issues

[Anonymous]

We were told today that teachers must take attendance in every single class and if a kid comes in 20+ minutes late, then mark them absent. We are not supposed to change their attendance to present if they show up half way through class.

[Anonymous]

Our staff were also discussing students skipping classes to avoid tests, study, and take them later. Currently, we are not allowed to take points off for skipping. The current system encourages it due to the lack of consequences.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

You should be. Unfortunately the bias narrative just continues the cycle of low expectations and group politics that leads to disadvantaged groups not coming to school in the first place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We were told today that teachers must take attendance in every single class and if a kid comes in 20+ minutes late, then mark them absent. We are not supposed to change their attendance to present if they show up half way through class.

Was this not the policy before? I would have assumed teachers take attendance every class based on what I’ve seen with my kids’ attendance records, but was that not the case?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We were told today that teachers must take attendance in every single class and if a kid comes in 20+ minutes late, then mark them absent. We are not supposed to change their attendance to present if they show up half way through class.

Was this not the policy before? I would have assumed teachers take attendance every class based on what I’ve seen with my kids’ attendance records, but was that not the case?

We do take attendance every class but for a while (during Covid and post-Covid) it seemed like MCPS did not care about attendance at all so teachers were less diligent about it. If you don’t take attendance, the default is that every kid gets marked present.
Actually taking attendance every single class is now a prioritized requirement at my school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our staff were also discussing students skipping classes to avoid tests, study, and take them later. Currently, we are not allowed to take points off for skipping. The current system encourages it due to the lack of consequences.

This exactly! My child knows they dye can skip without consequence!

For the teachers who discussed it today, will that now change? Will students not be able to make up work mussed during class unexcused absences? Fingers crossed!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We were told today that teachers must take attendance in every single class and if a kid comes in 20+ minutes late, then mark them absent. We are not supposed to change their attendance to present if they show up half way through class.

Except this is late, not absent. We had a teacher mark our kid absent for homeroom as they didn't participate/share as the teacher demanded they did as our child wasn't uncomfortable with the constant topics the teacher pushed and it was a teacher where if you didn't say the right thing you were verbally admonished for not being their version of political correctness. It wasn't reasonable but not worth fighting as homeroom meant nothing.