Reply to Richard Montgomery High School teacher complains about chronic absenteeism

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Just to clarify with the issue of parents saying they don't correct their kids being mistakenly being marked absent, the issue isn't that parents aren't making an effort to correct the records.

The issue is when showing that their school's attendance rates might not be where they would like it, they come with the excuse, "oh well, they make mistakes in taking attendance"

Same thing when showing low proficiency rates, "oh my kid had a bad day and is why they got a low test score..."[/quote]

I know my kid was at school yesterday taking a test all day.  Got an email saying they were absent.  Not fixing it.  [/quote]

Okay, so you're saying that the attendance numbers for MCPS isn't as bad due to inaccurate attendance taking.

So that means maybe chronic absenteeism isn't as big of an issue at MCPS as people make it out to be?

Then what is the reason for MCPS's declining proficiency rates, where it trails other local school systems?  Then what is the solution to help fix it?[/quote]

I agree it’s not as big an issue as the data makes it seem.  They should also knock out all the half days when lookkkg at the data.  I don’t think other local school systems use as many silly half days.  At least some of the data also doesn’t account for sick days — I do think sick days are increased post covid for a variety of reasons (parents being more sensitive to keeping kids home when sick, kids immune systems being generally messed up after the pandemic, some increases in chronic autoimmune type conditions that  maybe were covid triggered, etc.)

I think the declining proficiency rates are because the teachers are frustrated, exhausted and overwhelmed.  My kids have been in the system for 15 years and I’ve seen so many of the best teachers just give up and leave.  That combined with the fact that MoCo is increasingly a high needs county.  [b]Things like poverty and ESL status are highly correlated with performance on standardized tests[/b].  [/quote]

Again, this is where I'm having issues with people finding excuses.  People are blaming poverty and ESL.

I think we can all agree that Montgomery County and Fairfax County are similar right?

But compare their SAT scores for the class of 2023-2024:
https://www.fcps.edu/news/fairfax-county-class-2024-continues-surpass-state-and-global-sat-averages
https://ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/sharedaccountability/reports/2025/250109_2024%20SAT_ACT_Part%20and%20Perf.pdf

Overall scores:
Fairfax: 1178
MCPS: 1063

Reading/Writing:
Fairfax: 594
MCPS: 541

Math:
Fairfax: 537
MCPS: 518

The Fairfax County link above doesn't break numbers out by ESL and low income.  And I don't want to offend or make assumptions based on race.  But even their numbers for Black and Hispanics are higher  than MCPS's numbers.

Maybe Fairfax county doesn't have as much poverty as MCPS?  It was pointed out here before:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-income_counties_in_the_United_States

Fairfax is the fifth richest county in the USA

Whereas Montgomery is 20th

As for size:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_largest_school_districts_in_the_United_States_by_enrollment

Fairfax is the 11th largest school system.

Montgomery is 14

So it's as I've been trying to mention in my previous posts in multiple threads, there's something that Montgomery County (both the county and the school system) is not doing right.

People can say, well Montgomery County is a large school system with a diverse population that other school systems in the country doesn't have to deal with.  Well Fairfax County Public Schools is larger.

Okay, maybe MCPS has to deal with more high risk populations than Fairfax.  Then why is this and why did it happen?  Fairfax and Montgomery Counties used to be equivalent.  And I know there have been times I've been in Fairfax standing behind someone with a visible ankle monitor and there was a period where Fairfax had more visible gang activity than Montgomery.

I'm not here to continuously try to trash Montgomery County and point out how other local school systems are outperforming it.  I live here and have a stake in Montgomery County too.  But it's frustrating to watch MCPS going on a decline and people focusing on the wrong things.

Also our family has done activities in the east county and have lived in some of the more lower performing areas before.  And can say for a fact that there are families that try their best and care very much about their kids performances.  But they honestly lack the resources and are blocked from getting the same things as people from the west side of the county.

And I do think attendance rates/chronic absences do correlate to student performance.  I mean it's kind of obvious to do well in school, you have to first show up.  But again look at the root cause and try to fix the issue.  It's not keep on trying to accommodate the students by pushing to have later start times when it wouldn't make a difference.[/quote]

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