LCPS attendance policy revision

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:School vouchers would help that. That way those wealthy families can go to whatever school works with their Jetsetting schedules and the kids who really need a public school education can be at school filling in knowledge gaps.

Or parents can just make the choice for their own kids whether or not to pull their kids out for vacation. Make up work shouldn't be an option, but the school also shouldn't harass/bully parents about attendance.

If you don’t want schools to be concerned with attendance, talk to VDOE.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:School vouchers would help that. That way those wealthy families can go to whatever school works with their Jetsetting schedules and the kids who really need a public school education can be at school filling in knowledge gaps.

Absolutely not!! Then they get to pull money from public schools to go to private and faff around all year on vacation?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Really stinks for the families who have already booked their trips to visit family overseas in December, especially considering how short the break is this year. I wonder if there will be significant pushback.

Attendance Policy Revision to Reduce Absenteeism:
School attendance is a key issue in Loudoun County and around the country. In response, the Loudoun County School Board with guidance from the LCPS Department of Student Services and the Chronic Absenteeism Task Force has revised Policy 8140, Student Attendance Requirements and Procedures. This policy outlines what types of absences are categorized as excused or unexcused absences. Some revisions to this policy include:

Absences due to family trips or vacations are considered unexcused absences unless they are due to family emergencies or observations of religious holidays. Parents/guardians are advised to schedule such trips during school holidays.

Vacation and travel was an EXCUSED absence until just now in Loudoun County?! Really?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Boo hoo. “Push back” all you want but attendance is in literal crisis right now at all levels so they’re doing what they need to do to address it. I had a student come up to me the Friday before Thanksgiving break and say she was going to her family’s country Monday and could I give her the work for the next 8 weeks. I said no. She’s going to end up failing Q2 and having to revive her grade for Q3 and Q4 but she is not the only student who will be gone for 6+ weeks this year and teachers cannot just accommodate that or other frequent absences because people think school is optional.

5-8 weeks of absence for travel outside of scheduled breaks is *insane*. They’d have to repeat the entire grade with that in another country and risk police visits. School is mandatory already in the DMV, or is it not?! Honest question.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Boo hoo. “Push back” all you want but attendance is in literal crisis right now at all levels so they’re doing what they need to do to address it. I had a student come up to me the Friday before Thanksgiving break and say she was going to her family’s country Monday and could I give her the work for the next 8 weeks. I said no. She’s going to end up failing Q2 and having to revive her grade for Q3 and Q4 but she is not the only student who will be gone for 6+ weeks this year and teachers cannot just accommodate that or other frequent absences because people think school is optional.

5-8 weeks of absence for travel outside of scheduled breaks is *insane*. They’d have to repeat the entire grade with that in another country and risk police visits. School is mandatory already in the DMV, or is it not?! Honest question.

Yes it’s mandatory. However, the courts will not take up truancy cases anymore. There’s actually no “teeth” for schools to enforce attendance anymore despite accreditation being tied to attendance. It used to be the truancy officer would get up from an attendance meeting and go TO the house to visit the parents and tell them to get their kid to school. Now there’s no mechanism to do anything when parents don’t make their kids come as required.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Boo hoo. “Push back” all you want but attendance is in literal crisis right now at all levels so they’re doing what they need to do to address it. I had a student come up to me the Friday before Thanksgiving break and say she was going to her family’s country Monday and could I give her the work for the next 8 weeks. I said no. She’s going to end up failing Q2 and having to revive her grade for Q3 and Q4 but she is not the only student who will be gone for 6+ weeks this year and teachers cannot just accommodate that or other frequent absences because people think school is optional.

5-8 weeks of absence for travel outside of scheduled breaks is *insane*. They’d have to repeat the entire grade with that in another country and risk police visits. School is mandatory already in the DMV, or is it not?! Honest question.

Yes it’s mandatory. However, the courts will not take up truancy cases anymore. There’s actually no “teeth” for schools to enforce attendance anymore despite accreditation being tied to attendance. It used to be the truancy officer would get up from an attendance meeting and go TO the house to visit the parents and tell them to get their kid to school. Now there’s no mechanism to do anything when parents don’t make their kids come as required.

How about simply a policy that you have to repeat the grade (as is the case in other countries) with 6 weeks of non-medical absence?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Boo hoo. “Push back” all you want but attendance is in literal crisis right now at all levels so they’re doing what they need to do to address it. I had a student come up to me the Friday before Thanksgiving break and say she was going to her family’s country Monday and could I give her the work for the next 8 weeks. I said no. She’s going to end up failing Q2 and having to revive her grade for Q3 and Q4 but she is not the only student who will be gone for 6+ weeks this year and teachers cannot just accommodate that or other frequent absences because people think school is optional.

5-8 weeks of absence for travel outside of scheduled breaks is *insane*. They’d have to repeat the entire grade with that in another country and risk police visits. School is mandatory already in the DMV, or is it not?! Honest question.

Yes it’s mandatory. However, the courts will not take up truancy cases anymore. There’s actually no “teeth” for schools to enforce attendance anymore despite accreditation being tied to attendance. It used to be the truancy officer would get up from an attendance meeting and go TO the house to visit the parents and tell them to get their kid to school. Now there’s no mechanism to do anything when parents don’t make their kids come as required.

How about simply a policy that you have to repeat the grade (as is the case in other countries) with 6 weeks of non-medical absence?

Well go propose it to legislature then, VDOE would have to mandate that, a school can’t.

[Anonymous]

Does this mean teachers will not accept their make up work for their unexcused school days?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does this mean teachers will not accept their make up work for their unexcused school days?

In theory, it could, but in reality, admin makes us take it . It does mean we don’t have to give you a bunch of work when you tell us you’re jetting off for 3-8 weeks whenever you want.

[Anonymous]

Yet the Indian kids his families take them on these two month long midyear vacations often graduate top of the class and go to the best universities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yet the Indian kids his families take them on these two month long midyear vacations often graduate top of the class and go to the best universities.

Well first of all, it’s not just Indian families who take these trips. I have students from all backgrounds who do. That being said, Indian families heavily support academics at home and with supplemental resources such as tutoring, Kumon, additional math etc that not all families do, and that certainly gives them an edge. Their culture prioritizes academic achievement and will facilitate it in ways not all families do, so these students aren’t as negatively impacted in an academic sense as some of their peers who are also gone for extended periods. Some students are already being in reading and math and genuinely cannot afford to miss this much school , but we can’t control if they do or not (nor can they).

[Anonymous]

already behind*

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yet the Indian kids his families take them on these two month long midyear vacations often graduate top of the class and go to the best universities.

If the teachers/admin stuck to the rules about work/tests missed during unexcused absences not being made up, then these kids would be failing everything.

[Anonymous]

Every one of my LCPS children's high school Indian friends c/o 2018 and 2022 would spend the summer in India and come back with lots of new clothes. I am shocked that they would now miss school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My school lost some accreditation this year due to absences. I'd say that 95% of the absences were sicknesses.

I do think that there's a lot of people taking long vacations though in the higher SES schools. Seems like if there's such a demand for that, that maybe it could be baked into the calendar. 2-3 weeks off in February or so. I personally can't vacation travel over Thanksgiving or Christmas holidays because we're seeing family members. And travel in the summer is ridiculously hot in a lot of areas of the world. I'd love to have a long break at a time when most other schools are in session. It would make traveling easier. I do have a lot of Indian friends who pull their kids out for 2 weeks and Loudoun county has a very large Indian population.

As a teacher I absolutely do not support other kids going 3 weeks longer in summer so wealthy families can jet off for 3 weeks in the middle of the year. All they’d do is plan a separate trip from that one anyway.

OK well I support year round schools with larger breaks between quarters. We could still have summer but it would be like 6 weeks. Or maybe a month.

My kids attended a school overseas like this and it was great. Wish we did it here. Summer was 6-7 weeks, but there was a week long fall break, 2 weeks at Christmas, a week long winter break, 3 weeks off in the spring, and a few other random days off.

One thing I dislike here is all the random days off. I wish they would group them better.