Increase Absenteeism in Midle/Upper SES students not due to illness?

[Anonymous]

I can only speak anecdotally but it seems to be high in our HS. It not just athletes either. Would love to hear from teachers about this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can only speak anecdotally but it seems to be high in our HS. It not just athletes either. Would love to hear from teachers about this.

Gee. Athletic competition used to require that you be in school that day. Is that no longer true?

[Anonymous]

Teacher here. Yes, I have noticed this the past few years too. A couple trends I see:
1. Vacations. We have an attendance code for uneducated vacations and we see a lot around long weekends (not surprising given the choppy calendar).
2. Mental Health/School Avoidance Issues
3. Sports/Extracurricular commitments

I think the common thread is Schoology. Everyone in these categories thinks they can easily make up the works since “it’s all on Schoology” until they realize that it’s often not as easy to make up on your own/ without the help of classmates and teachers.

[Anonymous]

PP- ha I meant “unexcused” vacation not uneducated ones Freudian slip I guess.

[Anonymous]

There were lots of teachers who took off beyond the holiday, too. DC returned to only 1 teacher and all the rest were subs and electronic work assigned.

[Anonymous]

It’s really on the parents in high school. Most call their kids in sick, the usual suspects are headache or diarrhea over and over again. I would say of my 140 students. Almost all the honors are there every single day, but the regular kids, I have 5-7 missing each class and it is a different set of kids. Of those 58 students, 24 have missed 12 or more classes so far this year. We have only had about 70 total. And 19 have missed 15 or more. Admin is told over and over again but they act like there is nothing that can do

[Anonymous]

Also I teach primarily 10th graders, the 11th and especially 12 graders at our school attendance is horrific.

[Anonymous]

It’s the protracted school year. Shrinking summer limits the periods available to families to do what they need— doctor appointment appointments, visit aging family, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can only speak anecdotally but it seems to be high in our HS. It not just athletes either. Would love to hear from teachers about this.

Your "absenteeism" is my "smaller class sizes".

[Anonymous]

It's the choppy calendar. Clearly education is not a priority with the calendar set as it is so families react accordingly.

[Anonymous]

Lots of kids at my kid's high school seem to miss because they are overloaded. Got an academic competition on Thursday morning? Miss Wednesday to prep. Got a big outside project due Friday at midnight? Stay up all night Thursday and miss Friday to sleep. Travel for this and that extracurricular and miss school because of it. Usually work can easily be made up.

Funny thing is my kid's highschool gives lunch detentions for tardies but doesn't even call if your kid skips class. My kid (similar to above) will occasionally skip in the library to study. Literally no one cares.

It's wild.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's the choppy calendar. Clearly education is not a priority with the calendar set as it is so families react accordingly.

I don't think so. This has been an issue since at least the 2019-2020 school year.

I used to have between 0-3 students absent each day (out of approximately 90 students I see each day). Now I usually have 1-5 absences per class (or 3-15 students each day).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lots of kids at my kid's high school seem to miss because they are overloaded. Got an academic competition on Thursday morning? Miss Wednesday to prep. Got a big outside project due Friday at midnight? Stay up all night Thursday and miss Friday to sleep. Travel for this and that extracurricular and miss school because of it. Usually work can easily be made up.

Funny thing is my kid's highschool gives lunch detentions for tardies but doesn't even call if your kid skips class. My kid (similar to above) will occasionally skip in the library to study. Literally no one cares.

It's wild.

This so much (and the stupid calendar).
Everyone is being strategic.
Hate the game not the players.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lots of kids at my kid's high school seem to miss because they are overloaded. Got an academic competition on Thursday morning? Miss Wednesday to prep. Got a big outside project due Friday at midnight? Stay up all night Thursday and miss Friday to sleep. Travel for this and that extracurricular and miss school because of it. Usually work can easily be made up.

Funny thing is my kid's highschool gives lunch detentions for tardies but doesn't even call if your kid skips class. My kid (similar to above) will occasionally skip in the library to study. Literally no one cares.

It's wild.

+1 They will keep track of 1 minute late tardies on the report card but no one cares if you pull your child out at 10 am every day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lots of kids at my kid's high school seem to miss because they are overloaded. Got an academic competition on Thursday morning? Miss Wednesday to prep. Got a big outside project due Friday at midnight? Stay up all night Thursday and miss Friday to sleep. Travel for this and that extracurricular and miss school because of it. Usually work can easily be made up.

Funny thing is my kid's highschool gives lunch detentions for tardies but doesn't even call if your kid skips class. My kid (similar to above) will occasionally skip in the library to study. Literally no one cares.

It's wild.

This! There is a lot of skipping by kids in honors/AP classes. If my son realizes there is going to be an assembly or a substitute where the online he can tell the the assignment is to watch a video he prefers to skip class to watch the video speeded up. Other kids miss when there is a test to get an extra day to study and ask around about how hard the test is / what was covered.

My son had an AP calculus class where the tests were on Fridays. So many kids would miss class Friday in order to have the weekend to study. Then the problems was so many kids were absent Friday that the teacher just had the absent kids take the test on Monday. Meanwhile the teacher had the other kids just get a head start on the next topic by reading the book and working on problems by themselves. The class was first period so my son would often just miss that Monday class.