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

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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Chronic student absenteeism and the lack of a MCPS response is the purpose of this thread. If you want to start a different thread regarding teacher absenteeism then please have at it. However, just like any employer, MCPS has to honor legitimate reasons for teachers are absent. As a PP pointed out, just because a teacher is not in the classroom doesn’t mean they are not performing another job duty for MCPS.

Likewise, students are allowed excused absences. Doctor appointment or dental appointments would classify as an excused absence and would require a parental or provider note.

For students who are considered chronically absent, is there data on the percentage of excused absences vs. not excused? How many students are considered to be habitually truant?

Any word on when MCPS hopes to have a plan for addressing this problem?[/quote]

Schools and leadership teams are working on this issue.  The data is not currently broken out by excused absence vs not executed.  Nor does it break out whether a kid is chronically missing some classes vs the whole day vs leaving early.[/quote]

How can school leadership work on the issue without breaking out the data?

For example, if a particular class has more absences than the norm, wouldn’t it be necessary to figure out why? Wouldn’t finding out why the students were absent be necessary before proposing a solution?

MCPS also needs to review its attendance reporting practices to ensure schools are collecting the data mandated by MSDE. Notes should be on file for excused absences so data can be collected as to why students were not present when excused.
[/quote]

Absolutely.  Without understanding the data, this is really just useless.
The strategy to get one kid in school who is 17 and just hanging out at 7-11 instead of going to class is going to be very different than the supports a kid with a chronic health problem may need which are going to be very different from whta to do about a 9 year old who spends a month visiting family in another country each year.
How can they even begin to have this discussion without accurate data?[/quote]

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