Truancy In DC HS Is Shocking - Why No Urgency To Address?!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would argue that determining an excused versus unexcused absence is not equal across the district. And parents know how to game the system- more than 1.3% of Walls kids miss 20 days of school a year- their parents just know how to get those absences excused.

20 days is a LOT. It takes a big effort to miss that much in HS and presumably most Walls families care about academics and won’t miss that much. Also DCPS is pretty strict about how they determine excused/unexcused. Are you seriously arguing that 50% of Walls students miss 4 weeks of school and their parents give fake dr notes?

Nope not 50% but definitely more than 1.3%. That is claiming that out of a school of 600 kids only like 7 are truant. It’s not actually that hard to miss 20 days of school. That’s about two days a month. I said parents know how to play the system. You only need a doctor’s note after five consecutive days. And truancy is only ten unexcused days so way more than 1.3% meet that threshold. You can incredulous but it’s definitely true.

[Anonymous]

PP again but just imagine how many kids took off Monday and Tuesday before Thanksgiving break to travel. Travel to visit family isn’t excused but lots of kids are excused.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would argue that determining an excused versus unexcused absence is not equal across the district. And parents know how to game the system- more than 1.3% of Walls kids miss 20 days of school a year- their parents just know how to get those absences excused.

Do you know this or are you just speculating? My kids have never missed 20 days of school in a year. Even if a student had Covid twice and went to the doctor and dentist a few times, you wouldn't get near 20 days.

My kids have already missed 20 days of school this year, due to sickness.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would argue that determining an excused versus unexcused absence is not equal across the district. And parents know how to game the system- more than 1.3% of Walls kids miss 20 days of school a year- their parents just know how to get those absences excused.

20 days is a LOT. It takes a big effort to miss that much in HS and presumably most Walls families care about academics and won’t miss that much. Also DCPS is pretty strict about how they determine excused/unexcused. Are you seriously arguing that 50% of Walls students miss 4 weeks of school and their parents give fake dr notes?

Nope not 50% but definitely more than 1.3%. That is claiming that out of a school of 600 kids only like 7 are truant. It’s not actually that hard to miss 20 days of school. That’s about two days a month. I said parents know how to play the system. You only need a doctor’s note after five consecutive days. And truancy is only ten unexcused days so way more than 1.3% meet that threshold. You can incredulous but it’s definitely true.

dp: 2 days/mo unexcused is a ton, and most families serious about school miss 0/mo. unexcused.

You are kidding yourself. These parents aren't "playing the system" -- they pay attention to learning and grades, not attendance rules. Their kids go to school because they like school, that's what they've always done, and they have goals that are best achieved by showing up at school.

[Anonymous]

Wow, even for DC this is a staggering waste of money with little to no return...

[Anonymous]

I can tell you exactly why SWW has almost no truancy. A few years back we hosted an exchange student from Russia to attend SWW, (after his original host family gave up, that should have been our first clue, but I digress.)
After about 2 weeks we were called in to the school where they threatened legal action against us because we were letting him cut school. We had no idea when he left the house with backpack that he wasn't walking the five blocks to school but instead meeting with cronies on the Mall every day. Turns out he didn't give a fig about the whole school thing: somebody in Russia paid for him to go to the front of the line to be picked for the exchange program so he would be out of their hair.

[Anonymous]

Is the vendor someone's cousin? Does the Council exercise ANY oversight? W/o education, what options will kids have? Many may be helped by services but w/o being in school they will not be connected.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What do you want DC to do about it? Put 88% of the kids at Ballou, 1/3 of the kids at JR, etc. in foster care? Put all their parents and guardians in jail? Encourage them to drop out so they don't get counted anymore? Send them to boarding school?

Very progressive of you to ask a bunch of questions and then claim nothing can be done because of equity.

PP didn’t claim anything like that. They asked very reasonable question.

So again, what’s your policy proposal to fix this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What do you want DC to do about it? Put 88% of the kids at Ballou, 1/3 of the kids at JR, etc. in foster care? Put all their parents and guardians in jail? Encourage them to drop out so they don't get counted anymore? Send them to boarding school?

This. Parents and/or kids can't be bothered, what's the school supposed to do?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would argue that determining an excused versus unexcused absence is not equal across the district. And parents know how to game the system- more than 1.3% of Walls kids miss 20 days of school a year- their parents just know how to get those absences excused.

Do you know this or are you just speculating? My kids have never missed 20 days of school in a year. Even if a student had Covid twice and went to the doctor and dentist a few times, you wouldn't get near 20 days.

I’ve had a kid miss 20 days. Covid, death in the family, sick, vacation, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Send the parents to mandatory parenting classes.

And what if they don't go--put them in jail?

I think you'd find with many truant students that the parent is already in jail, or 80-something great-grandma has guardianship, or the kid's placed in foster care in Bowie and can't get to school easily, or the kid is herself a parent.

I'm not saying that attendance is unfixable. Just that it's really hard and requires a lot of resources and skilled workers with low caseloads. And the place to start is probably not high school. How many kindergartners miss 20 days a year? How many 5th graders?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What do you want DC to do about it? Put 88% of the kids at Ballou, 1/3 of the kids at JR, etc. in foster care? Put all their parents and guardians in jail? Encourage them to drop out so they don't get counted anymore? Send them to boarding school?

Very progressive of you to ask a bunch of questions and then claim nothing can be done because of equity.

PP didn’t claim anything like that. They asked very reasonable question.

So again, what’s your policy proposal to fix this?

Unenroll the truant students and send their pupil funding to schools that actually have students to teach. Not sure why people are bringing up punishing the parents - they are usually judgement proof against any fines and what... you're going to ask the USAO to prosecute them? They don't even prosecute violent crime in DC. Best you all can do is work with the students who have some semblance of a chance in this crazy environment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What do you want DC to do about it? Put 88% of the kids at Ballou, 1/3 of the kids at JR, etc. in foster care? Put all their parents and guardians in jail? Encourage them to drop out so they don't get counted anymore? Send them to boarding school?

Yes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What do you want DC to do about it? Put 88% of the kids at Ballou, 1/3 of the kids at JR, etc. in foster care? Put all their parents and guardians in jail? Encourage them to drop out so they don't get counted anymore? Send them to boarding school?

This. Parents and/or kids can't be bothered, what's the school supposed to do?

Parents should be fine
Required to attend a class about education
Eventually kids go to foster care

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Send the parents to mandatory parenting classes.

And what if they don't go--put them in jail?

I think you'd find with many truant students that the parent is already in jail, or 80-something great-grandma has guardianship, or the kid's placed in foster care in Bowie and can't get to school easily, or the kid is herself a parent.

I'm not saying that attendance is unfixable. Just that it's really hard and requires a lot of resources and skilled workers with low caseloads. And the place to start is probably not high school. How many kindergartners miss 20 days a year? How many 5th graders?

Definitely. Same for the parents letting their kids run around and carjack and steal coats.