My senior is skipping a lot of school...

[Anonymous]

My daughter is an only child and she is pretty independent. Middle School and High School have mostly been hands off for me. She is a Senior now, is taking a challenging course load, has straight As, and has been accepted to her dream university. Here is the thing, she skips school A LOT. Sometimes she asks me to write her a note, which I do, sometimes she just skips certain periods (she tells me they are going over test corrections which she doesn't need or there is a substitute, or they are watching a movie, etc), and then there are the Senior skip days. It is not just her, it is most of her friends also (all really good students). My question is: Can FCPS penalize her in some way for all the missed days/classes? Or will she not be on their radar because of her grades? Also, how is it possible for kids to skip so much and still get good grades??? Are senior classes graded easier? I feel like she had to work so hard her junior year to keep top marks and she rarely skipped. This year is insane.

[Anonymous]

FCPS doesn’t penalize kids.

I wouldn’t worry about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:FCPS doesn’t penalize kids.

I wouldn’t worry about it.

The new discipline survey from Nardos King is taking away discipline flexibility from principals and making the entire district uniform.

This change means that a kid like OPs kid who is a senior with straight As and no problems at school will receive the same punishment for skipping as the kkd who is flunking classes and is skipping to vape in the bathroom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FCPS doesn’t penalize kids.

I wouldn’t worry about it.

The new discipline survey from Nardos King is taking away discipline flexibility from principals and making the entire district uniform.

This change means that a kid like OPs kid who is a senior with straight As and no problems at school will receive the same punishment for skipping as the kkd who is flunking classes and is skipping to vape in the bathroom.

I doubt it in reality.

[Anonymous]

OP, a friend just told me that one of the people in his company was fired for taking too many PTO days. (The company offered unlimited PTO, assuming it would not be abused.)

There are limits. I'd be more concerned about whether my child will be able to hold a job if she does not understand that sometimes we just have to tolerate a little boredom.

As a private counselor told the son of one of my friends: " Sometimes, you don't do the work because you need to, you do it to get the grade you want."
(My friend's son thought he understood the material and did not need to do the homework.)

Your DD may be accepted to the college she wants, but if she does not go to class, there may be trouble.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, a friend just told me that one of the people in his company was fired for taking too many PTO days. (The company offered unlimited PTO, assuming it would not be abused.)

There are limits. I'd be more concerned about whether my child will be able to hold a job if she does not understand that sometimes we just have to tolerate a little boredom.

As a private counselor told the son of one of my friends: " Sometimes, you don't do the work because you need to, you do it to get the grade you want."
(My friend's son thought he understood the material and did not need to do the homework.)

Your DD may be accepted to the college she wants, but if she does not go to class, there may be trouble.

Yes, what you said is correct, if she were to carry this behavior in college she would not do well. She is a hard worker when she needs to, she did the work and attended classes all through HS. It is just this year which seems like some kind of joke academically. No way kids can skip this much and still have good grades, but yet, this is the case. I'm mostly worried about repercussions from the school.

[Anonymous]

10 full day unexcused absences triggers the attendance tracking and more interventions.

If she comes to 1st period and skips 3rd-7th, it doesn't trigger the full day absence.

I am dealing with a LOT of kids this year who have 35+ absences to my class, but because they come to art that day, nothing happens to them. 10 tardies = detention, 10 single class absences = nothing. It's frustrating.

[Anonymous]

Many kids are mentally checked out by last semester and can easily glide through required studies. Let her take it easy. Just recommend staying on top of checking all boxes on graduation requirements. She is going to college soon so she should be able to manage it gerself.

[Anonymous]

I think "senioritis" is a real thing. Most are completely burned out by the time they hit January, with 9th through 11th academic pressure and the total insanity of college application season behind them. Count her lucky if she's gotten into her dream school and is still maintaining As in all her classes. To your point about the lack of rigor in 12th grade courseload, it really depends on what courses she's taking. If she has a truly rigorous course schedule full of harder AP courses, I doubt she'd be able to skip so many courses and still maintain an A in all of them. If she's picked regular HN courses or much lighter AP load (both in course selection and the # of courses), then it's entirely possible to coast with As without showing up for class. So I think it all depends on the courses she is taking. Either way, I'd let her relax and enjoy the last few months of her high school life. And, I also don't think projecting her behavior today into what her college life will be makes any logical sense. Sounds like she's more the kid who knows what they're doing and her absenses are a calculated move on her part, knowing that she's able to do the coursework without showing up to classes. To me, that says more about the courses she's taking this year than anything else.

[Anonymous]

Why are you writing notes? Can she not learn to forge
your signature? Amateur.

[Anonymous]

90% of life is showing up. She is learning it's ok not to show up. By letting her skip classes/days, and writing her excuses,you are nurturing this behavior.

Frankly, FCPS would be the least of my concerns. I'd be more forward looking into my child's future as to whether they can be counted on to be somewhere even if they think it will be "boring" or they think they have "something better to do." I'm guessing she rarely misses a good time with friends.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: Why are you writing notes? Can she not learn to forge
your signature? Amateur.

I forged my mom’s signature starting in 2nd grade. I was precocious in that way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, a friend just told me that one of the people in his company was fired for taking too many PTO days. (The company offered unlimited PTO, assuming it would not be abused.)

There are limits. I'd be more concerned about whether my child will be able to hold a job if she does not understand that sometimes we just have to tolerate a little boredom.

As a private counselor told the son of one of my friends: " Sometimes, you don't do the work because you need to, you do it to get the grade you want."
(My friend's son thought he understood the material and did not need to do the homework.)

Your DD may be accepted to the college she wants, but if she does not go to class, there may be trouble.

I worked for a company that allowed unlimited PTO. Everyone was informed that they have a specified amount of contract hours that they have to meet in order to be considered full time. If you were taking so much PTO that you were coming under that number of hours, you were going to be in trouble. I managed people and would call them in to discuss how much they had taken and how much they effectively had left based on contract hours. The number of people we had to warn about their PTO use was higher then we would have liked, several people were told that if they took any more PTO before the end of the fiscal year they would be in part time hours status, which our contract didn't carry. We did track the days of PTO so no one should have been surprised. What the "unlimited PTO" did was removed pressure to take legitimate sick days and not worry about snow days since they would not eat into PTO. It allowed people to take their vacations and not worry that having to stay home with a sick kid or when they were sick was going to eat into that family vacation. But yes, people abused it and they were let go.

Your kid needs to be in class even if she doesn't think she needs to be in class. She is developing bad habits that will hurt her in college and the job market.

[Anonymous]

Her teachers will think less of her if she skips.

[Anonymous]

Why is this okay with you? Why are you crowd sourcing? She needs to be in class despite how smart she may be.