Pointless attendance reminders

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone find these texts and emails from MCPS about excused absences to be at all useful? I can't imagine there's a parent out there saying "Oh, I didn't care if my kid went to school, but now that I've received this text, I will care!"

My kid caught COVID at school so missed several days, was back for a week or two and then caught the respiratory illness that everyone in her classes has, so is out again. The text notes that she has missed three days this quarter and asks if there is anything MCPS can do to ensure she goes to school....she's in a school with like a thousand kids, with basically no ventilation, each day she is exposed to hundreds of different kids, there's almost no opportunity to wash your hands because the teachers don't like the kids to go to the bathrooms....so, yeah, she's going to get sick.

I really hope they are not spending any money at all on this text/email system. If anyone from MCPS is reading, please know that I just find this annoying.

There absolutely are parents who are taking kids on vacation and pulling kids out for that. I don't know if these texts make a difference, but I do think the first step is to make it clear kids should be in school and missing school is not ideal (but of course, it is unavoidable sometimes). The second step is consequences.

They don't. Those of us who take our kids out for vacation are well aware of this.

[Anonymous]

The absence alerts were WRONG half the time, for my children's middle and high schools, at least. Some of their absences were not noted, and sometimes they'd be marked absent even though they attended class.

Sometimes it's a sub who marks the wrong student absent, but other times, who the heck knows?

[Anonymous]

Teacher here. Attendance is meaningless these days. I had a student last year miss almost her entire senior year of school. No good reason for it either. Turned in a few half-assed assignments in the first week of June and the school let her graduate

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teacher here. Attendance is meaningless these days. I had a student last year miss almost her entire senior year of school. No good reason for it either. Turned in a few half-assed assignments in the first week of June and the school let her graduate

Teacher PP. What are your thoughts on this article about MCPS? Am I right to understand that the BOE is too hands off and central office policies are well-intentioned but ultimately, damaging to county attendance?

Bethesda Magazine: "Is MCPS losing its edge?"
https://moco360.media/september-october-2024-digital-edition/

[Anonymous]

Another perspective- The impact of excessive absence can be the same whether excused or unexcused. For example, let’s say a student has a medical issue (mental or physical) come up and that starts to result in many excused absences. This student is still missing valuable class time. If they are studious, they now are trying to makeup missed work and learning while trying to stay on top of new learning and work. If MCPS is made aware that something is going on, they can work with the family and school system to come up with a plan that may reduce the student’s burden. For example, their teachers could ensure they get packets of the weeks work ahead of time. They could schedule tutoring sessions. They could change the students schedule for the short or long term so medical appointments could be more easily scheduled and the student not have to miss class. Etc…

As someone also pointed out, some parents may not be aware that their kid is missing school days or particular parts of school days.

While the system isn’t perfect and can likely use tweaks,it’s an attempt to inform parents of an issue that impacts their kids learning and potential to do well while also reaching out to understand the potential cause of the absenteeism.

So while you can say my kid had the flu one week and the Covid the next but overall is fine and doing well, that same fact is not true for All.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teacher here. Attendance is meaningless these days. I had a student last year miss almost her entire senior year of school. No good reason for it either. Turned in a few half-assed assignments in the first week of June and the school let her graduate

Same. My friend teaches in a MS. She told her admin that Larlo never showed up for school. They asked her if Larlo handed in any work on her Google classroom and she said he did 2-3 assignments for the first quarter. They instructed her to grade the assignments. Marlo got a C that quarter even though he never attended class ever. Ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

I got one of these what can we do to help your child attend emails when mine missed 4 days for a fever. Would you prefer I send them in sick next time?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I got one of these what can we do to help your child attend emails when mine missed 4 days for a fever. Would you prefer I send them in sick next time?

They would prefer that actually.

One of the reasons we moved to private. They still care about attendance but don't hound me if I provide a doctor's note for my kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I really wish they would screen out excused absences from these messages. My teen missed four days because they had pneumonia. Doctor’s note submitted, absences excused, and yet here’s the email anyways.

My message said the absences were a combination of excused and unexcused but all of the absences have been excused.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone find these texts and emails from MCPS about excused absences to be at all useful? I can't imagine there's a parent out there saying "Oh, I didn't care if my kid went to school, but now that I've received this text, I will care!"

My kid caught COVID at school so missed several days, was back for a week or two and then caught the respiratory illness that everyone in her classes has, so is out again. The text notes that she has missed three days this quarter and asks if there is anything MCPS can do to ensure she goes to school....she's in a school with like a thousand kids, with basically no ventilation, each day she is exposed to hundreds of different kids, there's almost no opportunity to wash your hands because the teachers don't like the kids to go to the bathrooms....so, yeah, she's going to get sick.

I really hope they are not spending any money at all on this text/email system. If anyone from MCPS is reading, please know that I just find this annoying.

Completely absurd that rather than solve the issue for increased absences ( covid spreading and destroying kids immune systems) they try to force kids to come in while actively sick to help their numbers and further the whole cycle

[Anonymous]

One factor that the state rates schools on is attendance. They don’t distinguish between excused and unexcused absences. The state is concerned about the high rate of absenteeism across the state and it requires the school systems to send these types of notices and to work to connect with parents and resolve issues in order to get kids to attend school. Ultimately, MCPS doesn’t control whether or not a kid attends consistently, yet is expected to solve the problem. It’s no win.

These notices just aren’t worth complaining about.

Side note, the state changed requirements around withdrawals from school so that kids who are unexcused absent for 10 days are supposed to be withdrawn. For some reason some parents who didn’t care if their HS kid attended at all during a quarter cared a lot if the kid was withdrawn. It’s weird. Admin would finally tell the parent they were withdrawing the kid, and suddenly the kid would be in class. Still wouldn’t get work done. Would attend regularly for a couple weeks, then occasionally, then gone again. Rinse and repeat. Happened with several kids last year, and I can see it’s going to happen again this year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone find these texts and emails from MCPS about excused absences to be at all useful? I can't imagine there's a parent out there saying "Oh, I didn't care if my kid went to school, but now that I've received this text, I will care!"

My kid caught COVID at school so missed several days, was back for a week or two and then caught the respiratory illness that everyone in her classes has, so is out again. The text notes that she has missed three days this quarter and asks if there is anything MCPS can do to ensure she goes to school....she's in a school with like a thousand kids, with basically no ventilation, each day she is exposed to hundreds of different kids, there's almost no opportunity to wash your hands because the teachers don't like the kids to go to the bathrooms....so, yeah, she's going to get sick.

I really hope they are not spending any money at all on this text/email system. If anyone from MCPS is reading, please know that I just find this annoying.

Maybe they could spend less on this and more on teachers so classes were less crowded. Then maybe more kids would show up even.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One factor that the state rates schools on is attendance. They don’t distinguish between excused and unexcused absences. The state is concerned about the high rate of absenteeism across the state and it requires the school systems to send these types of notices and to work to connect with parents and resolve issues in order to get kids to attend school. Ultimately, MCPS doesn’t control whether or not a kid attends consistently, yet is expected to solve the problem. It’s no win.

These notices just aren’t worth complaining about.

Side note, the state changed requirements around withdrawals from school so that kids who are unexcused absent for 10 days are supposed to be withdrawn. For some reason some parents who didn’t care if their HS kid attended at all during a quarter cared a lot if the kid was withdrawn. It’s weird. Admin would finally tell the parent they were withdrawing the kid, and suddenly the kid would be in class. Still wouldn’t get work done. Would attend regularly for a couple weeks, then occasionally, then gone again. Rinse and repeat. Happened with several kids last year, and I can see it’s going to happen again this year.

I just love these stories!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Another perspective- The impact of excessive absence can be the same whether excused or unexcused. For example, let’s say a student has a medical issue (mental or physical) come up and that starts to result in many excused absences. This student is still missing valuable class time. If they are studious, they now are trying to makeup missed work and learning while trying to stay on top of new learning and work. If MCPS is made aware that something is going on, they can work with the family and school system to come up with a plan that may reduce the student’s burden. For example, their teachers could ensure they get packets of the weeks work ahead of time. They could schedule tutoring sessions. They could change the students schedule for the short or long term so medical appointments could be more easily scheduled and the student not have to miss class. Etc…

As someone also pointed out, some parents may not be aware that their kid is missing school days or particular parts of school days.

While the system isn’t perfect and can likely use tweaks,it’s an attempt to inform parents of an issue that impacts their kids learning and potential to do well while also reaching out to understand the potential cause of the absenteeism.

So while you can say my kid had the flu one week and the Covid the next but overall is fine and doing well, that same fact is not true for All.

I agree with your point, but the trigger for the email/text (I received both) seems too low. She missed three days (all excused) in a quarter. That's pretty normal if a kid has COVID, flu, a bad virus -- pretty much anything. Asking me if there's anything MCPS can do to get my kid to attend class more when she missed three days seems just totally pointless. If you had a kid that was missing 15 days in a quarter, yeah, I can see where perhaps MCPS might be able to provide the family with some assistance either in attendance or in-home/virtual teaching. But I also suspect that it's sort of an empty offer for assistance, because I don't think there is much that MCPS can provide to families that are struggling to get their kids to school.

I really don't mean to be critical of MCPS -- I'm actually a much bigger fan of the school system than most posters on this board. But I am a big critic of their PR/Comms department, which seems to just entirely make a lot of work for themselves sending out messages that are pointless and not useful to anyone. Whatever they are paying those people, I'd prefer they fire them, and use the money to pay teachers.

I do think that the alerts telling you your child was not in school are helpful -- even though they are wrong at least 50% of the time, at least it's a way to alert parents that there may be a ditching problem that they don't know about (or possibly that they forgot to send in the note for illness). The messages I was complaining about are NOT the "your child was absent for one or more periods today" messages, but rather the "Larla has missed 3 days of school this quarter. This includes both excused and unexcused absences. How can we help?" (the message then goes on to lecture me about how all absences, even for illness, mean missed instructional time....).

[Anonymous]

The state threshold for chronic absenteeism is 10%. So early in the year, one 3 day sickness triggers the warning.