MCPS has no idea what it's doing when it comes to chronic absenteeism

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every single thing in school is not suppose to be fun. Mental discipline means students have to deal with boring without cussing their teachers out or drawing swastikas on the desks. Teachers should not have to sing and dance to get your attention. They should also have the support and trust of their colleagues that they won't be fired if they are labeled as "boring". We have to volunteer thousands of hours for our credential. The harrassment has to end!

No one is defending swastikas and cussing out teachers.

This issue at hand is simply not showing up. I strongly disagree that teachers shouldn't have to earn attention in any way. If you are super boring and your class is useless OF COURSE students won't show up as much. No excuses for cussing/disruption/swastikas. But just skipping a boring and useless class is natural and acceptable response to it being boring and useless.

Boring =/= useless

These are not the same, but too many classes are both.

Kids aren't equipped to judge what is or isn't useful. They just know they're bored.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For a lot of kids, anything other than video games and social media is “boring.” Teachers can’t compete with the dopamine rush from those. Not sure how some of these kids will make it in the real world.

Agree, this is a real problem.

I hear students say “I’m bored” within seconds of finishing a conversation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Yeah. I don't care anymore. Attendance taking is crap: my kids have been marked absent when they where in school, and not marked absent when I had pulled them out for doctor's appointments. Usually it's whenever there's a sub, they cannot seem to take attendance correctly.

Same, especially with the new policy, if you're late you're absent. This year is insane. I'm tired of policing it as a parent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For a lot of kids, anything other than video games and social media is “boring.” Teachers can’t compete with the dopamine rush from those. Not sure how some of these kids will make it in the real world.

This is a deeper problem that won't be fixed by attendance enforcement.

[Anonymous]

My kid will be chronically absent after Monday, when he misses one day for travel. All others were illness (including covid) plus one other travel day. Will we get a letter?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid will be chronically absent after Monday, when he misses one day for travel. All others were illness (including covid) plus one other travel day. Will we get a letter?

Probably not. My kid is regularly marked absent. I gave up trying to fix it. It's been three times this week when they were in testing.

[Anonymous]

Kids know that it is easy to make assignments up. If they fail they can just use Edmentum.

The county needs an official policy on lateness of assignments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For a lot of kids, anything other than video games and social media is “boring.” Teachers can’t compete with the dopamine rush from those. Not sure how some of these kids will make it in the real world.

I dunno, I'm an adult with a well compensated job that I find interesting. It would be torturous sitting through my kids' high school day. School is much more boring than the real world in my experience. At least in college I was choosing to be there and could mostly just take the classes I was interested in.

[Anonymous]

Are PPs on this thread really role playing as parents of chronically absent kids?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are PPs on this thread really role playing as parents of chronically absent kids?

I guess not. I'm the one who said we'll hit it this week, but I realize that my kid isn't a concern to administrators because his absences are 99% excused, he has straight As, and I wrote to say "hey this is coming up and I realize it's a lot do we need to do anything?" CA refers to kids who skip school and have poor outcomes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Kids know that it is easy to make assignments up. If they fail they can just use Edmentum.

The county needs an official policy on lateness of assignments.

This is the regulation:

Establishing due dates and deadlines:
(1) Teachers are expected to separate the due date from the
deadline in order to increase opportunities for students to
complete assignments.
(2) Work turned in after the due date and by the deadline may
be lowered no more than one letter grade or 10 percent of the
grade.
(3) A “Z” in the gradebook is used to denote that the student did
not submit an assignment by the due date but still has an
opportunity to submit the missing work.
(4) If the student does not turn in the assignment after support
and intervention, the teacher may change the “Z” to a final
grade of zero.

https://ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/policy/pdf/ikara.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are PPs on this thread really role playing as parents of chronically absent kids?

We are saying that MCPS does not keep accurate records, and with absences being marked even when kids are in school (possibly late), the absence number might be inflated.

No one disputes that some kids are chronically absent, but
A. perhaps there are fewer chronically absent kids than MCPS thinks and
B. chronic absenteeism has to do with poverty and a troubled home life, which is not something schools can easily fix.

So this is all for nothing. Let's focus on more security in school (vaping detectors, weapons detectors, security officers), and a better caliber of teachers with a more rigorous curriculum, smaller classes and more textbooks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They should make schools more engaging if they want kids to attend. Forcing it with punitive measures is a bad look. If your service is not very useful to students and parents, of course they won't use it as much. I don't see how chronic absenteeism per se is a problem at all. It's just a symptom of schools not being that fun or educational.

Why don't you sh** on teachers a little bit more? The problem with people today is that everyone is a "client." Now students are clients? GTFO. MCPS should focus on finding a good curriculum and hiring quality teachers. My guess is that most of the kids not showing up are a PIA anyway. If they don't want an education, what do we care.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are PPs on this thread really role playing as parents of chronically absent kids?

I've been defending the position that absenteeism is a symptom of a larger problem (low-value classes) rather than a problem in itself. No, my kid is not chronically absent and I never claimed as much. However, I don't see the big deal if they were, especially if it was for something else high value such as travel, which I suspect is a pretty common source of "chronic absenteeism".

I also trust my kid to make good judgement about how to spend their time. They do well in challenging classes and are not social media or video games addicts. So if they also skip here and there to get coffee instead of going to class, I just don't understand the problem. If they started skipping a ton, I would look into the possibility that they might have a problem but I would also keep an open mind to the possibility that school is not a good use of their time and they have found more efficient ways of learning the material on their own.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They should make schools more engaging if they want kids to attend. Forcing it with punitive measures is a bad look. If your service is not very useful to students and parents, of course they won't use it as much. I don't see how chronic absenteeism per se is a problem at all. It's just a symptom of schools not being that fun or educational.

Why don't you sh** on teachers a little bit more? The problem with people today is that everyone is a "client." Now students are clients? GTFO. MCPS should focus on finding a good curriculum and hiring quality teachers. My guess is that most of the kids not showing up are a PIA anyway. If they don't want an education, what do we care.

Hmm, sounds like we mostly agree: hire good teachers and leave the skippers alone. I am on board with that plan!