Roughly 25% of MCPS students are chronically absent, and absenteeism response plan delayed

[Anonymous]

Our former principal made teachers document one attempt per day per student who was absent even though there were automatic robocalls. So if 4 kids were absent on Monday and they didn't return on Tuesday, I had to call all 4 parents and then document each call in a spreadsheet that was shared with admin. You can imagine how time consuming this became when appr. 60-70% of my students were chronically absent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our former principal made teachers document one attempt per day per student who was absent even though there were automatic robocalls. So if 4 kids were absent on Monday and they didn't return on Tuesday, I had to call all 4 parents and then document each call in a spreadsheet that was shared with admin. You can imagine how time consuming this became when appr. 60-70% of my students were chronically absent.

Why couldn’t the attendance secretary and an intern make these calls and keep the spreadsheet everyday?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The general rule is that teachers are not allowed to grade “behavior” including cursing out a teacher or skipping. So, there are few consequences academically and admin does want to give any consequences either. It is often a disrupted/punishing situation for teachers and other kids in the room. They have created a situation of no natural consequences. Kids are moved ahead no matter what even less prepared for learning with the next teacher.

The kids that are "skipping" are mostly also the kids who could not care less what their grades are. Academic consequences aren't going to do anything.

That’s not always the case. Some kids skip because they are bored in classor worse not following along(essentially the give up)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The general rule is that teachers are not allowed to grade “behavior” including cursing out a teacher or skipping. So, there are few consequences academically and admin does want to give any consequences either. It is often a disrupted/punishing situation for teachers and other kids in the room. They have created a situation of no natural consequences. Kids are moved ahead no matter what even less prepared for learning with the next teacher.

The kids that are "skipping" are mostly also the kids who could not care less what their grades are. Academic consequences aren't going to do anything.

That’s not always the case. Some kids skip because they are bored in classor worse not following along(essentially the give up)

A lot of kids did not get the academics they needed in elementary and struggle for a variety of reasons and fell through the cracks. They are not strong students and need more support.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our former principal made teachers document one attempt per day per student who was absent even though there were automatic robocalls. So if 4 kids were absent on Monday and they didn't return on Tuesday, I had to call all 4 parents and then document each call in a spreadsheet that was shared with admin. You can imagine how time consuming this became when appr. 60-70% of my students were chronically absent.

Why couldn’t the attendance secretary and an intern make these calls and keep the spreadsheet everyday?

What intern? Our secretary is busy all day long and wouldn't have time to make all of these calls.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The general rule is that teachers are not allowed to grade “behavior” including cursing out a teacher or skipping. So, there are few consequences academically and admin does want to give any consequences either. It is often a disrupted/punishing situation for teachers and other kids in the room. They have created a situation of no natural consequences. Kids are moved ahead no matter what even less prepared for learning with the next teacher.

The kids that are "skipping" are mostly also the kids who could not care less what their grades are. Academic consequences aren't going to do anything.

That’s not always the case. Some kids skip because they are bored in classor worse not following along(essentially the give up)

A lot of kids did not get the academics they needed in elementary and struggle for a variety of reasons and fell through the cracks. They are not strong students and need more support.

They aren't going to get anything when they don't come to school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The general rule is that teachers are not allowed to grade “behavior” including cursing out a teacher or skipping. So, there are few consequences academically and admin does want to give any consequences either. It is often a disrupted/punishing situation for teachers and other kids in the room. They have created a situation of no natural consequences. Kids are moved ahead no matter what even less prepared for learning with the next teacher.

The kids that are "skipping" are mostly also the kids who could not care less what their grades are. Academic consequences aren't going to do anything.

That’s not always the case. Some kids skip because they are bored in classor worse not following along(essentially the give up)

A lot of kids did not get the academics they needed in elementary and struggle for a variety of reasons and fell through the cracks. They are not strong students and need more support.

They aren't going to get anything when they don't come to school.

If a child is struggling and that behind, why would they want to come to school?

But, either way, it is the parents responsibility to make sure their kids get to school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our former principal made teachers document one attempt per day per student who was absent even though there were automatic robocalls. So if 4 kids were absent on Monday and they didn't return on Tuesday, I had to call all 4 parents and then document each call in a spreadsheet that was shared with admin. You can imagine how time consuming this became when appr. 60-70% of my students were chronically absent.

Bravo for your principal to try to do something to address the issue. I would agree though that probably the calls should be manned by the school administrators or secretarial staff including the attendance secretary.

When has anyone in MCPS listened to the generic robo call? It says the your child (doesn’t name the child if you have multiple children) was missing either part or all of a class. The call doesn’t differentiate between a tardy, an absence, or the number of classes impacted. The attendance data is also inaccurate, sometimes marking my child present for a class when absent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Right. There are separate issues at play here:

1. MCPS Attendance System is a mess. It's not always accurate and they don't have a streamlined way to correct errors in the attendance records. This is true, but not really the reason why we're seeing the levels of chronic absenteeism that we're seeing.

2. Many kids are absent with and without their parents knowledge. Those who are absent with their parents' knowledge do so because they might be contributing to the household by watching younger siblings OR working a part-time job that contributes to household income. OR they simply might believe that it's not a big deal to miss "a day or two" of school without realizing how many days their kids are actually racking up. Then there are parents who have NO IDEA their kids are skipping cause they drop their kids off or see their kids going to school, without realizing that some kids go into the building and right back out, or that they're skipping certain classes to hang around in the building.

This is why the data needs to be precise and organized so we can slice and dice the various causes of chronic absenteeism and address them accordingly. In some instances, the absenteeism is the fault of the parents. In others, it's the fault of the school. But we can't hold the responsible party accountable if the data is a mess.

+1 To come up with effective solutions means that the reasons for the absences need to be examined.

[Anonymous]

I bet all the kids are geniuses. They don't need to show up, pay attention, or do work. They can't pass tests without getting half a dozen retakes. But they still pass because we are teaching these idiots that doing nothing is the same as studying and they can pass without showing up. We just have to push them along until college when they take out loans to fi d out they cant read.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our former principal made teachers document one attempt per day per student who was absent even though there were automatic robocalls. So if 4 kids were absent on Monday and they didn't return on Tuesday, I had to call all 4 parents and then document each call in a spreadsheet that was shared with admin. You can imagine how time consuming this became when appr. 60-70% of my students were chronically absent.

Bravo for your principal to try to do something to address the issue. I would agree though that probably the calls should be manned by the school administrators or secretarial staff including the attendance secretary.

When has anyone in MCPS listened to the generic robo call? It says the your child (doesn’t name the child if you have multiple children) was missing either part or all of a class. The call doesn’t differentiate between a tardy, an absence, or the number of classes impacted. The attendance data is also inaccurate, sometimes marking my child present for a class when absent.

If you aren't following up on the robo-call, that's on you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our former principal made teachers document one attempt per day per student who was absent even though there were automatic robocalls. So if 4 kids were absent on Monday and they didn't return on Tuesday, I had to call all 4 parents and then document each call in a spreadsheet that was shared with admin. You can imagine how time consuming this became when appr. 60-70% of my students were chronically absent.

Bravo for your principal to try to do something to address the issue. I would agree though that probably the calls should be manned by the school administrators or secretarial staff including the attendance secretary.

When has anyone in MCPS listened to the generic robo call? It says the your child (doesn’t name the child if you have multiple children) was missing either part or all of a class. The call doesn’t differentiate between a tardy, an absence, or the number of classes impacted. The attendance data is also inaccurate, sometimes marking my child present for a class when absent.

If you aren't following up on the robo-call, that's on you.

I drop my children off at school and I pick them up. The attendance record keeping is atrocious. If there was a serious problem, I would expect the school or a teacher to reach out to me. A robo call is so generic that it doesn’t even differentiate between which child or which class was impacted or if a child was simply late to a class.

[Anonymous]

This is one of the problems with very large school systems like MCPS.

I will add that the parents are also at fault. My suspicion is that most of these kids come from single parent homes. This is the demise of society.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is one of the problems with very large school systems like MCPS.

I will add that the parents are also at fault. My suspicion is that most of these kids come from single parent homes. This is the demise of society.

That’s right. Blame that single parent for sticking around to raise their child alone. I think you mean to blame the absent parent.

[Anonymous]

My kids teachers are absent routinely. Kids not so much.