Why cant DC deal with truancy?

[Anonymous]

Biggest problem for schools and yet there is total impunity.

Consequences for kids?
For their parents?

Round these kids up and take them to school!!

[Anonymous]

Our district had this problem too. They started off the year pretty firm and parents literally went psycho that they had to bring in an actual doctors note when they called their kid in sick for more than 2 days in a row. It isn’t “equitable” bc some people can’t afford to go to the doctors, etc. Same with parents saying their kid needed mental health days off and it isn’t the schools business or they are taking a vacation and don’t need permission. Schools can’t win.

[Anonymous]

How does it affect you? Let it go. These kids probably wouldn’t be doing very well in school anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our district had this problem too. They started off the year pretty firm and parents literally went psycho that they had to bring in an actual doctors note when they called their kid in sick for more than 2 days in a row. It isn’t “equitable” bc some people can’t afford to go to the doctors, etc. Same with parents saying their kid needed mental health days off and it isn’t the schools business or they are taking a vacation and don’t need permission. Schools can’t win.

I am not one of those parents but it is completely unreasonable to ask for a doctor's note for being out sick for a few days. For most illnesses, it's not appropriate or necessary to go into a doctor's office. Doctors are busy and shouldn't be spending time writing school absence excuses for a few days. And frankly if a kid is sick with something contagious we want that kid to stay home! Did we learn nothing from covid?

[Anonymous]

Sometimes when there's a serious systematic problem, the answer is simple and the people in charge just decided not to do what's necessary.

But 99 percent of the time, it's just a lot harder than it appears.

"Round these kids up and take them to school!!"

OK. Who does it? If the children refuse, are they going to physically force them to school? If so, how do you think that will go? If you think there should be consequences for parents, what should those consequences be? Jail? If not, maybe fines? What if they have no money. How do you distinguish between parents who are failing to get their kids to school because they aren't trying or because they can't? What if the parents have to leave before their children to get to work?

We all agree this is a huge problem and more needs to be done. But actually doing it is the hard part.

That's not to excuse DC. There are many similar school systems that are doing better, and DC can and must do better. But yelling "Round these kids up and take them to school!!" is meaningless.

[Anonymous]

My kid is chronically absent. There are lots of factors for this— bullying at the school by both peers and teachers, learning deficits, emotional difficulties, etc. To fix all these things has been monumental— meetings with teachers and administration, doctors, specialists, therapists— there is no way I could be doing this if I didn’t have the money and the flexible job I currently have. I would have been fired by now for sure. To expect everyone in DC to be able to do this is crazy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our district had this problem too. They started off the year pretty firm and parents literally went psycho that they had to bring in an actual doctors note when they called their kid in sick for more than 2 days in a row. It isn’t “equitable” bc some people can’t afford to go to the doctors, etc. Same with parents saying their kid needed mental health days off and it isn’t the schools business or they are taking a vacation and don’t need permission. Schools can’t win.

I am not one of those parents but it is completely unreasonable to ask for a doctor's note for being out sick for a few days. For most illnesses, it's not appropriate or necessary to go into a doctor's office. Doctors are busy and shouldn't be spending time writing school absence excuses for a few days. And frankly if a kid is sick with something contagious we want that kid to stay home! Did we learn nothing from covid?

Majority of illnesses do not need to result in kid being home 3+ days. If your kid is sick enough to still need to be home after 3 days (and likely has a weekend in there too, if falls sick on a Tuesday-Friday) then yes they should go to the doctor

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our district had this problem too. They started off the year pretty firm and parents literally went psycho that they had to bring in an actual doctors note when they called their kid in sick for more than 2 days in a row. It isn’t “equitable” bc some people can’t afford to go to the doctors, etc. Same with parents saying their kid needed mental health days off and it isn’t the schools business or they are taking a vacation and don’t need permission. Schools can’t win.

What does an elementary or middle school need a doctor's note for? Since grades don't matter until HS I doubt very many are faking to get more time to study for tests or turn in assignments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sometimes when there's a serious systematic problem, the answer is simple and the people in charge just decided not to do what's necessary.

But 99 percent of the time, it's just a lot harder than it appears.

"Round these kids up and take them to school!!"

OK. Who does it? If the children refuse, are they going to physically force them to school? If so, how do you think that will go? If you think there should be consequences for parents, what should those consequences be? Jail? If not, maybe fines? What if they have no money. How do you distinguish between parents who are failing to get their kids to school because they aren't trying or because they can't? What if the parents have to leave before their children to get to work?

We all agree this is a huge problem and more needs to be done. But actually doing it is the hard part.

That's not to excuse DC. There are many similar school systems that are doing better, and DC can and must do better. But yelling "Round these kids up and take them to school!!" is meaningless.

So we all agree that something needs to be done and it might be hard.

Got it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our district had this problem too. They started off the year pretty firm and parents literally went psycho that they had to bring in an actual doctors note when they called their kid in sick for more than 2 days in a row. It isn’t “equitable” bc some people can’t afford to go to the doctors, etc. Same with parents saying their kid needed mental health days off and it isn’t the schools business or they are taking a vacation and don’t need permission. Schools can’t win.

What does an elementary or middle school need a doctor's note for? Since grades don't matter until HS I doubt very many are faking to get more time to study for tests or turn in assignments.

I think it’s just because so many kids are chronically absent, so if your kid has to be out for multiple consecutive days, they want a documented reason beyond the parent’s word

[Anonymous]

School districts get penalized if they have too many kids chronically absent but also if they fail too many kids. The result is that high school diplomas are basically worthless because you can miss 30% of the school year every year and be illiterate but you can cheat your way through credit recovery programs and will still get that piece of paper once you're 18.
Enacting strict rules about attendance and getting rid of credit recovery nonsense would solve a lot of the truancy problems quickly but districts don't have the stones to do it.

[Anonymous]

Don't forget that they will fire teachers if we dont inflate the grades and cover up the bullying. Actually alot of us teachers are surprise fired after we inflate the grades.

[Anonymous]

Truancy is a problem families are responsible for. Schools cannot be held responsible for getting kids to school. I know they are and I think that's wrong

[Anonymous]

Look at why the kids don't want to be in school and work on that. Trying to fix it with a stick alone will not be so productive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How does it affect you? Let it go. These kids probably wouldn’t be doing very well in school anyway.

How does it affect me (my child)? Well, those kids are allocated resources that are allocated whether the child is truant or not. That means, on days the child isn’t there, there is a teacher waiting to teach them and has planned for them and is now not able to teach them. This is particularly true when the truant child needs/is provided extra support and those support teachers can’t pivot day to day. And unfortunately it doesn’t matter how many days these children are absent, they get the same resources planned for them.