Absenteeism-reduction measures at Dranesville ES feel like misplaced student pressure

[Anonymous]

It is preaching to the choir and encouraging the spread of sickness.

How many 5 year olds telling mommy they want an award by going to school is actually going to change that parent's behavior?

[Anonymous]

I hope perfect attendance just means no unexcused absences from classroom. Thought we were long past telling kids to go to school when sick.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:I wonder if the school nurse there (a health department employee) has been consulted on any of these measures. Doubtful.

FCPS has pretty clearly said attendance policies for illness are back to pre-pandemic. The fact that some people on DCUM cannot get used to that idea doesn't change it.

Precovid kids still aren’t supposed to come to school when sick, and some children are going to miss due to chronic illness or other issues. Here are all the current reasons your child should stay home: severe coughing, pink eye, diarrhea, vomiting, fever, rash/fever, strep.

Agree this is misplaced. My children have had low level gunk since the beginning of September and we haven’t missed a day, but we would if we had any of the above symptoms.

Disagree. Yes, kids get sick and should stay home and yes, kids are getting sick more and for longer after covid.

But the big problem is parents who have decided that school is optional and have passed that idea on to their kids. It's not a low SES idea either, it's across all SES. It's all over this forum, everywhere. And it harms kids to miss school.

There is data showing that it hurts struggling children, but is there data showing that it hurts high achievers? My kid is in middle school and we're fine with them sleeping in on occasion or leaving early. They do great in school, sit down with khan academy when they don't get a concept in math, read a ton

No, at least not at the secondary level.

That's what you're telling yourself...

[Anonymous]

Dranesville has an enrollment of about 600 kids and is getting a very expensive renovation now based on an assumed 1000-student enrollment.

I guess FCPS needs to count every kid in the building it can to justify its continued misallocation of capital resources.

[Anonymous]

This isn’t about kids staying home when they’re sick. I have taught at school like this where absences run rampant. Families schedule cruises in the middle of January because it’s cheaper than winter break, miss the entire month of December to visit out of country family, schedule a dentist appointment at 9:30 and miss the whole school day. They miss a week of school to play in an out of state soccer tournament, or come to school 2 hours late every day because they are out late at dance class and need to sleep. Staff members (in general) aren’t mad about unavoidable, excused absences for being sick or medical appointments, but the optional things.

The email gave me the ick too, but I get it. It is frustrating to be told we are responsible for teaching child X to do Y, but then X never comes to first period or missed 20/90 days of your class or whatever.

I wish we could give consequences to parents, but schools can’t. Instead we can try to incentivize being there—it’s really the only card we have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Dranesville has an enrollment of about 600 kids and is getting a very expensive renovation now based on an assumed 1000-student enrollment.

I guess FCPS needs to count every kid in the building it can to justify its continued misallocation of capital resources.

I guess you don't care about any child who is not your own. And why should you? They don't matter to you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dranesville has an enrollment of about 600 kids and is getting a very expensive renovation now based on an assumed 1000-student enrollment.

I guess FCPS needs to count every kid in the building it can to justify its continued misallocation of capital resources.

I guess you don't care about any child who is not your own. And why should you? They don't matter to you.

Tell us how Dranesville is going to pick up 400 more kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This isn’t about kids staying home when they’re sick. I have taught at school like this where absences run rampant. Families schedule cruises in the middle of January because it’s cheaper than winter break, miss the entire month of December to visit out of country family, schedule a dentist appointment at 9:30 and miss the whole school day. They miss a week of school to play in an out of state soccer tournament, or come to school 2 hours late every day because they are out late at dance class and need to sleep. Staff members (in general) aren’t mad about unavoidable, excused absences for being sick or medical appointments, but the optional things.

The email gave me the ick too, but I get it. It is frustrating to be told we are responsible for teaching child X to do Y, but then X never comes to first period or missed 20/90 days of your class or whatever.

I wish we could give consequences to parents, but schools can’t. Instead we can try to incentivize being there—it’s really the only card we have.

I was just about to say this. The kids who are chronically absent is not due to illness the majority of the time. There are always a few incidents where sickness is the case but not the majority. Honestly, I hate that they are putting the pressure on schools regarding attendance because attendance is on the parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if the school nurse there (a health department employee) has been consulted on any of these measures. Doubtful.

FCPS has pretty clearly said attendance policies for illness are back to pre-pandemic. The fact that some people on DCUM cannot get used to that idea doesn't change it.

Precovid kids still aren’t supposed to come to school when sick, and some children are going to miss due to chronic illness or other issues. Here are all the current reasons your child should stay home: severe coughing, pink eye, diarrhea, vomiting, fever, rash/fever, strep.

Agree this is misplaced. My children have had low level gunk since the beginning of September and we haven’t missed a day, but we would if we had any of the above symptoms.

Disagree. Yes, kids get sick and should stay home and yes, kids are getting sick more and for longer after covid.

But the big problem is parents who have decided that school is optional and have passed that idea on to their kids. It's not a low SES idea either, it's across all SES. It's all over this forum, everywhere. And it harms kids to miss school.

There are lots of days at school when not much is happening.
School feels free to have snow days, teacher training days, and Covid closures.
I don’t think taking an extra day or two off for vacation is going to harm my child more than Covid closures did.

[Anonymous]

In short, have a campaign for chronically absent kids from troubled families but not for regular kids who miss a day or two to go on a family vacation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like a way to get sick kids to come to school and infect everyone else.

This was my first thought.

My second thought was that this gives me skeevy vibes. It sounds like a perfect way to gang up on kids who might not have the greatest support system at home, or who might not have perfect health.

[Anonymous]

Our country needs to stop bending over backwards begging families to send their kids to free schools. If they are absent for no real reason (like most of my students), they should unenroll them. In order to return to school, parents need to actually come to school to talk to admin and teachers about the expectations. The vast majority of students at my school scoring below grade level on assessments year after year are chronically absent.

[Anonymous]

I looked up the article. You apparently neglected to mention that their absenteeism rate went from 20% to 6%?

[Anonymous]

This would make me crazy as a teacher. I had a student my last year of teaching who was absent all the time for no good reason, but that was not his fault. It was his family’s fault that staying home to go get a haircut was more important than school. They need to have parent conferences with the principal with these families and leave everyone else out of it.

[Anonymous]

A kid is considered chronically absent if they miss 15 days of school— excused and unexcused absences count towards the 15 days. The percentage of chronically absent students plays into school accreditation. That’s the real reason why FCPS cares.