Attendance policy

[Anonymous]

If your kid tests positive for covid on Sunday or Monday, shouldn’t they be out Monday through Friday…5 school days?

Most people aren’t taking kids to the doctor for mild covid symptoms, but they are contagious and shouldn’t be in class, right?

[Anonymous]

I think the crackdown is in response to families who travel abroad for long trips to visit family.

Curious how this will play out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just got a notice from my kid's elementary school that "prolonged absences of 5 days or more require, by state law, a physician's excuse."

I'm lucky if I can get an appointment with my kid's physician within 3 months and I'm not about to take my kid to urgent care where they will get the staff sick for no medical end when they get covid or the flu. So I guess it is a maximum four day quarantine now, whether they still have symptoms or not. Or alternatively I can just live with the school vaguely threatening report me to CPS for truancy.

Anyone else pissed about this?

My kids had a mild cold. I kept them home but they seemed fine the next day so I sent them back to school. A few days later I had it myself but realized it was covid. At that point they were already past day 5 so missed very little school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What, you don't want to pay $100 to sit in a waiting room with a bunch of even sicker people for 4 hours? Where is your sense of adventure?

Urgent care is like $20-$25 with most insurance. And if you make an appointment, you won’t wait 4 hours.

DP. That it costs $25 and might be faster is there is still no reason to be there, except MCPS’s excessively fastidious administrative BS. That’s a fairly terrible basis for any additional use pressure on the health care system we have going in this country rn.

I thought the email said it was a STATE law in which case your argument is with MD not MCPS.

As we are all aware, the state is not in the school enforcing this law. MCPS has choices about how rigidly it does this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What, you don't want to pay $100 to sit in a waiting room with a bunch of even sicker people for 4 hours? Where is your sense of adventure?

Urgent care is like $20-$25 with most insurance. And if you make an appointment, you won’t wait 4 hours.

DP. That it costs $25 and might be faster is there is still no reason to be there, except MCPS’s excessively fastidious administrative BS. That’s a fairly terrible basis for any additional use pressure on the health care system we have going in this country rn.

I thought the email said it was a STATE law in which case your argument is with MD not MCPS.

As we are all aware, the state is not in the school enforcing this law. MCPS has choices about how rigidly it does this.

I have no idea. Perhaps MCPS just wants to be able to say "we sent out the policy". I once got a letter saying my kid was in danger on failing due to missed classes (an office mixup relating to sports). Her teacher told us that the letter is required but the child would only fail if the teacher took additional action. We could just ignore. Student graduated and is in college. Do you really think parents will be fined or arrested for keeping their kids home for 5 days after a pos Covid test??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What, you don't want to pay $100 to sit in a waiting room with a bunch of even sicker people for 4 hours? Where is your sense of adventure?

Urgent care is like $20-$25 with most insurance. And if you make an appointment, you won’t wait 4 hours.

DP. That it costs $25 and might be faster is there is still no reason to be there, except MCPS’s excessively fastidious administrative BS. That’s a fairly terrible basis for any additional use pressure on the health care system we have going in this country rn.

I thought the email said it was a STATE law in which case your argument is with MD not MCPS.

As we are all aware, the state is not in the school enforcing this law. MCPS has choices about how rigidly it does this.

Yes. This is really about whether the extended absences are marked in the system as excused (doctor's note) or unexcused (no doctor's note).

[Anonymous]

It’s entirely reasonable to request a doctors note after five days of absence.

The DCUM audience is generally not the target demographic for this law. There families who allow their kids to stay home they’re just cutting class or when they find out their kids are cutting class they lie about being sick. So don’t be offended and they’re not trying to call you personally, a liar.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What, you don't want to pay $100 to sit in a waiting room with a bunch of even sicker people for 4 hours? Where is your sense of adventure?

Urgent care is like $20-$25 with most insurance. And if you make an appointment, you won’t wait 4 hours.

DP. That it costs $25 and might be faster is there is still no reason to be there, except MCPS’s excessively fastidious administrative BS. That’s a fairly terrible basis for any additional use pressure on the health care system we have going in this country rn.

I thought the email said it was a STATE law in which case your argument is with MD not MCPS.

As we are all aware, the state is not in the school enforcing this law. MCPS has choices about how rigidly it does this.

Yes. This is really about whether the extended absences are marked in the system as excused (doctor's note) or unexcused (no doctor's note).

We used to worry about unexcused absences but then realized...it was not worth the time to correct things with the office. My kids attended two different MCPS HSs. Neither had accurate attendance. Some semesters we were really surprised at the numbers of on the report card but it never seemed to matter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What, you don't want to pay $100 to sit in a waiting room with a bunch of even sicker people for 4 hours? Where is your sense of adventure?

Urgent care is like $20-$25 with most insurance. And if you make an appointment, you won’t wait 4 hours.

DP. That it costs $25 and might be faster is there is still no reason to be there, except MCPS’s excessively fastidious administrative BS. That’s a fairly terrible basis for any additional use pressure on the health care system we have going in this country rn.

I thought the email said it was a STATE law in which case your argument is with MD not MCPS.

As we are all aware, the state is not in the school enforcing this law. MCPS has choices about how rigidly it does this.

Yes. This is really about whether the extended absences are marked in the system as excused (doctor's note) or unexcused (no doctor's note).

We used to worry about unexcused absences but then realized...it was not worth the time to correct things with the office. My kids attended two different MCPS HSs. Neither had accurate attendance. Some semesters we were really surprised at the numbers of on the report card but it never seemed to matter.

Just be careful not to allow too many to rack up to the point that your child is deemed chronically absent. That means 18 days in the school year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the crackdown is in response to families who travel abroad for long trips to visit family.

Curious how this will play out.

This isn’t new.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You do understand that this isn't about your child that is truly sick. This is about the parents who allow their children to stay home for weeks without any sort of notification to the school. This is about the parents that take their children out of the country for weeks at a time to visit their native country. It is about the children who are actually truant. There are parents who never notify the school of why their child is not in school. They don't call, they don't sent in a note. They just ghost the school. You can understand how this can have a negative impact on the child who is not receiving an education. You can see how this is going to impact your child because when the student does return for a prolonged absence the teacher has to catch that student up.

If this was about a concern for children actually getting an education, they would have some meaningful oversight for homeschoolers, which they don't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What, you don't want to pay $100 to sit in a waiting room with a bunch of even sicker people for 4 hours? Where is your sense of adventure?

Urgent care is like $20-$25 with most insurance. And if you make an appointment, you won’t wait 4 hours.

DP. That it costs $25 and might be faster is there is still no reason to be there, except MCPS’s excessively fastidious administrative BS. That’s a fairly terrible basis for any additional use pressure on the health care system we have going in this country rn.

I thought the email said it was a STATE law in which case your argument is with MD not MCPS.

As we are all aware, the state is not in the school enforcing this law. MCPS has choices about how rigidly it does this.

I have no idea. Perhaps MCPS just wants to be able to say "we sent out the policy". I once got a letter saying my kid was in danger on failing due to missed classes (an office mixup relating to sports). Her teacher told us that the letter is required but the child would only fail if the teacher took additional action. We could just ignore. Student graduated and is in college. Do you really think parents will be fined or arrested for keeping their kids home for 5 days after a pos Covid test??

No but I think it's enough to scare low income/busy parents into just sending their covid-positive and possibly symptomatic kid to school just in case. Especially if they were already absent for a short family trip or something.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You do understand that this isn't about your child that is truly sick. This is about the parents who allow their children to stay home for weeks without any sort of notification to the school. This is about the parents that take their children out of the country for weeks at a time to visit their native country. It is about the children who are actually truant. There are parents who never notify the school of why their child is not in school. They don't call, they don't sent in a note. They just ghost the school. You can understand how this can have a negative impact on the child who is not receiving an education. You can see how this is going to impact your child because when the student does return for a prolonged absence the teacher has to catch that student up.

If this was about a concern for children actually getting an education, they would have some meaningful oversight for homeschoolers, which they don't.

You think MCPS should expending more of its resources and energy on oversight of people who've chosen to pull their kids out of the school system and teach them on their own?

Why?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the crackdown is in response to families who travel abroad for long trips to visit family.

Curious how this will play out.

This isn’t new.

Sigh.

The travel and absences aren’t new, but mcps is taking a hardline on absences this year…which is new.

Literally every teacher at back to school night had talking points on it. Plus a video from the principal.

There’s a long thread in this forum foreshadowing this hardline. Remember the chronic absenteeism discussion?

Another new bit: if you have 10 unexcused absences, you will unenrolled.

Like a pp said: this hardline isn’t for the “good” people. But I think it’s bizarre to take a hardline with good students when the real issue is immigrant families or others who disappear for weeks/months on end to travel abroad and the very real issue of unaccompanied Latinos or other boys who aren’t interested in school.

I think/hope? It’s a tactic to unenroll troublemakers.

It’s just frustrating that if my kid tests positive for covid I’ll need to take them to the doctor and essentially pay for a note to excuse their absence.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the crackdown is in response to families who travel abroad for long trips to visit family.

Curious how this will play out.

This isn’t new.

Sigh.

The travel and absences aren’t new, but mcps is taking a hardline on absences this year…which is new.

Literally every teacher at back to school night had talking points on it. Plus a video from the principal.

There’s a long thread in this forum foreshadowing this hardline. Remember the chronic absenteeism discussion?

Another new bit: if you have 10 unexcused absences, you will unenrolled.

Like a pp said: this hardline isn’t for the “good” people. But I think it’s bizarre to take a hardline with good students when the real issue is immigrant families or others who disappear for weeks/months on end to travel abroad and the very real issue of unaccompanied Latinos or other boys who aren’t interested in school.

I think/hope? It’s a tactic to unenroll troublemakers.

It’s just frustrating that if my kid tests positive for covid I’ll need to take them to the doctor and essentially pay for a note to excuse their absence.

Doctor's notes for extended absences has always been the case in my experience in MCPS. Why are people acting like this policy of expecting a doctor's note for extended absences is brand new and therefore unreasonable?